British army
head denies government rift
LONDON—Britain's army chief, who set off a political storm by calling
for troops to be withdrawn "soon" from Iraq in part because their
presence made the situation worse, said Friday he meant a phased
withdrawal over two or three years. He also denied that he was attacking
government policy.
Gen. Richard Dannatt gave a series of interviews after newspapers ran
front-page stories interpreting his remarks published Thursday by The
Daily Mail as a critique of Prime Minister Tony Blair's policy.
Dannatt said in the initial interview that the British military should
"get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the
security problems."
On Friday, he insisted Britain stood "shoulder to shoulder with the
Americans, and their timing and our timing are one and the same."
"We'll probably reduce our soldiers over the course of the next year or
two or three — let's wait and see. That's what I mean by sometime soon,"
Dannatt said in an interview with Sky News.
"We don't do surrender. We don't pull down white flags. We're going to
see this through," Dannatt said in an interview with British
Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Britain has not set a timetable for the departure of its 7,500 troops
from Iraq, but it has handed over security responsibilities in two
provinces to Iraqi forces and is preparing to do the same in a third.
In Baghdad, a government spokesman expressed confidence that British
troops would be staying for the near future.
The British government has "confirmed its support to the Iraqi
government," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press. "The
presence of these forces is necessary so that they can participate in
establishing stability in Iraq."
Al-Dabbagh said that for now, foreign troops are welcomed in Iraq.
"The Iraqi government does not wish to keep the foreign forces forever,
but these forces are staying for the time being, under a request by the
Iraqi government and according to the international resolutions," he
said.
Dannatt said his criticism of postwar planning in Iraq as "poor," and
his concerns about troops being stretched by deployments in Iraq and
Afghanistan, had been voiced by others. Retired senior officers have
raised those concerns, but they bore more weight coming from a serving
officer at Dannatt's level.
Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, said
Dannatt's position was "diametrically different" from government policy.
If Dannatt says "soon," Campbell added, "should that not now be measured
in a matter of months rather than years?"
John Rees, a founder of the Stop the War Coalition, which organized mass
marches in London before the invasion, said: "The head of the British
Army is saying what we have been saying for years, that the invasion was
a mistake, that we're making the situation worse, and that we should get
out."
Since March 2003, 119 British soldiers have died in Iraq.
Divisions about the war have led to the resignation of two members of
Blair's Cabinet and severely dented the prime minister's popularity.
Dannatt said his interview with the Daily Mail was mainly about
Afghanistan.
"It was certainly not my intention in a very general background
interview ... to have this hoo-ha which people have thoroughly enjoyed
overnight and tried to suggest that there is a chasm between myself as
head of the army and the prime minister," Dannatt said.
The newspaper declined to release a full text of the interview.
The Daily Mail, which posted Dannatt's remarks on its Web site Thursday
night, quoted the general as saying that, while Iraqis might have
welcomed coalition forces following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the
good will has evaporated.
"Our presence exacerbates the security problems," the Daily Mail quoted
Dannatt as saying. "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place
... has largely turned to intolerance."
The Defense Ministry responded to the Daily Mail interview by saying:
"We have a clear strategy in Iraq. We are there with our international
partners in support of the democratically elected government of Iraq,
under a clear U.N. mandate."
Blair's official spokesman told reporters in Scotland, where Blair is
involved in Northern Ireland talks, that the general had the prime
minister's full support.
While insisting that Britain would stay the course in Iraq, Dannatt told
the BBC: "We need to keep thinking about time because time is against
us. Because time is money, time is particularly soldiers and soldiers'
lives, and we cannot go on forever." —Agencies |
