October 15, 2006

Blogometer Extra

Iraq: Dannatt All To Hell

  Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt "drops a bomb," as Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics puts it, telling the Daily Mail that it was time for British troops to come home from Iraq.  From the article:

  General Sir Richard Dannatt said troops should come home within two years - flatly contradicting the Prime Minister's policy that the military will stay "as long as it takes".  In unprecedented comments he warned that the Army could 'break' if British soldiers are kept too long in Iraq.  "I want an Army in five years time and 10 years time.  Don't let's break it on this one.  Let's keep an eye on time," he said.

  Downing Street was aghast at the general's remarks, though in public it offered "full support".

  ...Sir Richard warned that the continuing presence of British troops "exacerbates the security problems" in Iraq and added that a "moral and spiritual vacuum" has opened up in British society, which is allowing Muslim extremists to undermine "our accepted way of life."

  His views have sent shockwaves through Government.  They are a total repudiation of the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly insisted that British presence in Iraq is morally right and has had no effect on our domestic security.

  Sir Richard, who took up his post earlier this year, warned that "our presence in Iraq exacerbates" the "difficulties we are facing around the world."  He lambasts Tony Blair's desire to forge a "liberal democracy" in Iraq as a "naive" failure and he warns that "whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance."

  "This is not some leftwing Labour backbencher," Bevan writes at RCP.  "It's the head of the army of our closest and most loyal ally in Iraq saying we should 'get out sometime soon.'  How much this will affect the debate in the U.S. is hard to say, but it's certainly difficult to characterize Dannatt as a 'cut and run' type."

  It's "huge," Rod Dreher of Crunchy Con asserts, "not only in terms of military strategy, but because of the challenge it represents to the British government's authority.  The head of the British Army is in open rebellion against the government's Iraq policy.  ...Dannatt says that the Brits have to leave Iraq because they're making the security situation worse.  They are no longer wanted there..."

  Ron Beasley at Middle Earth Journal concurs with the aforequoted.  "The coalition of the willing may be down to one," he writes, adding, "[H]is views will send shockwaves through (more than one) Government."  Same with Donklephant: "Looks like Britain has at least one General that thinks Iraq is going downhill too."

  Aside from those pessimistic views, typical as the shock and awe over the British general's assessment ran their course in the blogosphere, a few focused on the situation from a political context.  Tim at The Road to Surfdom:

  The [BBC] article speculates on why he is speaking out and suggests it might be a “very public warning to the next prime minister.”  This strikes me as about right and just underlines what a dead duck Tony Blair now is.  It also suggests that UK involvement in the war has largely been because of Tony Blair and that many people, officials, opposed it...

  Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice inevitably tied Dannatt's negative assessment to American politics: "If there is a sense of deja vu when you read these words, there should be: they seem akin to some of the words of Rep. Jack Murtha, who was later branded as a 'coward' by one GOPer."

  Then there's Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, writing at Political Animal, who not only was unsurprised, but he had anticipated Dannatt's words:

  Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted an item about a secret memo suggesting that the Chief of Staff of the British Army wanted to get out of Iraq?  The only question I had was: which Chief of Staff did the memo refer to?  The previous guy who retired at the end of August, or the new guy who took over from him?  Today the Daily Mail answers my question: it's the new guy. ... I wonder if there are any American generals who agree with him?

  Clearly feeling some heat from above, below, and all sides, Dannatt later was "subtly trying to back-pedal," as The Carpetbagger Report described it, in later interviews.  From Reuters, via MSNBC:

  He insisted he had said “nothing new or noteworthy” in his interview with the tabloid and was just repeating policy.  “It was never my intention to have this hoo ha, which people have thoroughly enjoyed overnight, trying to suggest there is a chasm between myself and the prime minister,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

  "No, of course not," writes Carpetbagger with a roll of the eyes.  "All Dannatt said was that troop presence in Iraq is making matters worse in Iraq and tearing at the social fabric of Britain, and that troop withdrawal needs to get underway.  Tony Blair says the exact opposite on all of these points.  Who said anything about a 'chasm'?"  Reuters continues:

  In his subsequent radio and television interviews, he said he was not suggesting an immediate withdrawal.  “I’m a soldier.  We don’t do surrender.  We don’t pull down white flags.  We’re going to see this through,” he said.  “But we’ve got to get on with it.  We can’t be there for years and years,” Dannatt said.

  "I don't know if Dannatt will be forced to resign, or perhaps retract his comments altogether, but I have to appreciate the fact that he made the remarks while still in a leadership role,"  Carpetbagger says.  "In the U.S. model, we get frank, candid admissions like these all the time — just as soon as the officials leave government and become private citizens."

  James Joyner at Outside the Beltway is down with that, quipping, "[W]e have to speculate as to what sitting American generals think about the issue because they have the professional discipline to keep their mouths shut."  Of Dannatt, Joyner writes, "Blair simply has to fire him."

  Finally, Digby at Hullabaloo simply can't resist a sarcastic dig himself, calling Dannatt a "Scone Eating Surrender General."  But "lucky for us," Digby wraps, "the president of the United States is looking forward to listening to Jimmy Baker's secret plan to end the war, so this isn't an issue for us."

Posted by Conn Carroll at October 15, 2006 03:35 PM