14 October 2006

General Sir Richard Dannatt - putting the boot in or oiling the spin machine?

Yesterday, before I got distracted by a Japanese cooking blog and yet more lunacy from Sion Simon, I'd intended to post an analysis of the interesting comments by the head of the British army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, on the Iraq situation. My initial reaction was that this was an extraordinary intervention by a man who had just decided to go for Tony Blair's jugular and damn the consequences. I can't remember any previous instance of a top-ranking officer going on the record to criticise Iraq - or any other government policy for that matter - in such a direct and frank way. How far would Sir Richard go? Overnight I harboured fleeing thoughts that we might wake up to some kind of Thai-style military coup. I'm sure the stock market would have risen in response to the possibility of never having to have any of those pesky destabilising, uncertainty-inducing elections for several years...

But this morning my train of thought was very different. Blair's strategy in interviews has been to say that he agrees with "every word" the General has said, and meanwhile Sir Richard has been backtracking, stressing that "there is not a piece of paper between [his position] and the Government." This is just plain wrong if we take both Sir Richard's speech and Tony Blair's previous pronouncements on Iraq at face value: for example, Sir Richard explicitly said he thinks the presence of British troops in Iraq "exacerbates the difficulties we are facing around the world", whereas Blair has repeatedly said he sees no link between the Iraq situation and the terrorist threat to the UK and to Britons abroad.

But what about if the General has actually been sent out as a media outrider, to float the possibility of disengagement and withdrawal from Iraq as a supposedly politically neutral public servant? Is the real strategy to bring 'respectable' public opinion around to the idea of a quick exit - on the grounds that the Government will find it easier to change policy if the head of the Army has laid the groundwork first? I guess, in the end, it comes down to who we think is really pulling the strings here. But with the Bush adminstration in crisis, urgent need for troop reinforcements in Afghanistan, and the Iraq situation seemingly intractable, it may be that Blair has simply had enough - or, that other senior figures in the government have told him his defence of current Iraw policy is untenable, given that he's going to be out within months anyway. It is just possible that this weekend could mark the start of a shift from Blair and other ministers saying "we'll stay as long as it takes to get the job done" to "we'll stay only as long as is strictly necessary as the troops are exacerbating the situation"... which could easily become a very quick pull-out. Anyway, it will be very interesting to see how this one develops.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The idea of a military coup is an interesting one. Its just possible that the reason the army is so under-equipped and undermanned, whilst simultaneously being deployed in multiple theatres, is to forestall this happening. Quite agree that the Stock market and most Private-sector workers would benefit from not having to endure the current regime for much longer!

In truth whilst a withdrawal would have profound consequences (possible reinstatement of Taliban control in Afghanistan,partition of Iraq, opening of a 'third front' in the Yemen and stepup of attacks on Macedonia/Serbia), without a major increase in defence spending we cannot maintain our position in either country for much longer. I also think its unlikely that the tens of thousands of Sino/North Korean agents employed in the famous 'non-jobs' across the public sector are to be sacrificed for aforesaid increase in defence expenditure.

I like how you have completely understood that the main concern of the government is to manage how the situation is perceived by the media , rather than actually doing anything to resolve it on the ground - keep it up!