IT WILL be business as usual at the Ministry of Defence as General Sir Richard Dannatt is due “in the office” to meet his fellow Service chiefs.

Despite criticism from senior figures of his comments in a newspaper interview, in which he urged the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq because their continued presence was exacerbating security conditions, sources close to Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said: “Everything is back to normal. It’s all done and dusted.”

That may be the case in Whitehall, but Paddy Ashdown and David Blunkett yesterday joined the chorus of those claiming that General Dannatt had breached constitutional practices.

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader and a former officer in the Royal Marines, said: “You don’t go into the public and blurt it all out that you disagree with the Government’s propositions.”

It was “a clear constitutional breach”, he said.

Speaking to Sky News Sunday Live, he added: “If the Government of the day is following a policy that he can’t sustain or he believes is wrong, then he resigns. That’s what happens.”

Lord Ashdown also criticised the general for calling the British Army “my Army”. He said generals did not own armies, they just led them.

The peer said he gathered that there had been “some talk” among Cabinet ministers about whether General Dannatt should keep his job.

However, one senior defence source said that General Dannatt expected that there would be no problem in his relationship with his political boss, Mr Browne. “It’s history and he intends to get on with a very demanding job,” the official said.

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, entered the fray when he told the BBC Sunday AM programme that General Dannatt had breached the constitutional basis upon which decisions were made, and that it was wrong for a military man to intervene in this way. “I think it’s fine that decisions taken by the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister are supported. I think lessons will be learnt,” he said.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary and a former military man, told Sky News Sunday Live that he had been “a bit surprised” by the general’s comments. But he agreed that he was reflecting concerns within the Army and that he should keep his job. “If he were to lose it, it would cause a huge morale issue (in the Army),” he said.

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