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These include setting a time frame for political progress, separating the insurgent from the population, acting scrupulously within the rule of law (in this instance international law and conventions), strengthening the local economy and acting on sound intelligence in order not to alienate the population.

The US approach is rather different. Stanley Karnow described it in his Vietnam: A History as a form of missionary zeal “to reform (the local) institutions”. Washington sought to export the American ideal in the belief that the Vietnamese might learn to appreciate a western cadence, little understanding that its rhythms made no sense to their ears.

The Americans should perhaps have heeded Robespierre’s caution that “no one likes armed missionaries”. In the absence of the influence of the international community, the danger remains that the mistakes of Vietnam will be repeated in Iraq, with the attendant risks of the domino effect to the wider region.

British tactics on the ground are based on patrolling in order to “interface” with the local community. Troops are armed, for sure, but also equipped with interpreters and cultural training that allows them to empathise and gain valuable low-level intelligence.

My own interpretation of this approach is to see and treat the people around you as humans, and to act, dress and behave in a way that makes them perceive and treat you as a human too.

This is not all “touchy-feely”. It is harder to kill a human than a uniform. And wars are often won by the use of intelligence generated by contacts made on these patrols.

Within the US armed forces a different approach exists. It demands that everyone in the American military dresses and behaves the same. An almost puritanical pursuit of this ideal has seen the virtual extinction of the drinking of alcohol and a rigid imposition of a stern, almost automaton-like, code of dress and behaviour — which can be alarming to allies and alien to indigenous populations.

This approach has been an unwitting obstacle to empathy in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and now Iraq. Armed convoys of no less than four vehicles, all armoured, racing past with heavy-calibre machineguns and cannon swivelling, are the reality of the American presence.

I found, when I suggested to one US commander that he might get a better reaction if he took off his helmet while he spoke to tribal elders, that he recoiled in horror. The Americans see removing a helmet as irresponsible, exposing the individual to unnecessary risk in what is a simple health and safety issue. They get their intelligence from high-tech sources. (Recent events have shown it is not always accurate or in context.) The deployment of British troops to an area of Iraq where the battle lines are already drawn represents a real challenge to our men. It may already be too late to take the more open-handed British approach, and for reasons of self-preservation they may need to adopt an uncharacteristically guarded stance.

Above all, though, we should pay strong attention to the fact that the United States, for all its high-tech hardware, has sought high-quality British troops to support a very modern operation at exactly the time when the government here is intent on reducing the numbers of fighting men in the army. Four British battalions are to be disbanded, we are told by the Ministry of Defence, in order that we can afford more high-tech equipment.

Of course we need to move beyond the Morris Marina in our equipment, but someone has miscalculated. The harsh reality of shedding highly motivated quality troops is that money alone cannot buy them back. Long and expensive training within institutions forged by time, experience and tradition is the only means of producing them.

We can only hope that this acts as an eleventh-hour warning to the Ministy of Defence. Nothing can replace the well-motivated, culturally aware man on the ground. We need more of these fine men, not fewer. The president of the United States requests it. Our nation should demand it.