The head of the Army has ordered his senior staff to make preparations for “a
generation of conflict”, in a speech that the Ministry of Defence tried to
keep secret.
General Sir Richard Dannatt gave warning of the dangers posed by a “strident
Islamist shadow” and suggested that the British Army was “on the edge of a
new and deadly Great
Game in Afghanistan”.
He also told senior staff that the trust and respect of the public could be
“increasingly difficult to gain” in the context of conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. “The challenge of this generation is as great as any that have
gone before us,” he added.
General Dannatt’s thoughts about the way forward for the Army were revealed in
a speech given to a conference in London in June. The speech remained secret
because the MoD did not allow the media to attend. However, under a Freedom
of Information request, the contents of the address to senior British and
overseas military have now been released.
In his address, General Dannatt underlined the importance of achieving success
in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he said were the “all-consuming focus” of the
Army at present. But he appeared to play down the prospects of achieving all
of the main objectives.
“It is success today in these two theatres, however you define success, that,
as far as I’m concerned, is both the top and bottom line because, if we fail
in either campaign, then I submit that, in the face of that strident
Islamist shadow, then tomorrow will be a very uncertain place,” he said.
However, he envisaged only “some form of success in Iraq” and spoke of
“significant achievement in Afghanistan” as a short-term objective for the
Army.
Gordon Brown said yesterday that progress in Afghanistan would be measured
across a wide range of activity, covering governance, reconstruction,
economic development and the building up of local security forces.
In a letter to Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, the Prime
Minister also pledged that he would not seek an early withdrawal of British
toops from Iraq for political reasons. “I believe that we have clear
obligations to discharge,” he said.
Last year General Dannatt said he believed that the troops should be pulled
out “some time soon”. However, in his June address, he seemed to be
preparing for decades of fighting ahead — presumably with Afghanistan in
mind. He had held a meeting of senior officers at an army development forum
to address the question: “How do we prepare ourselves for potentially a
generation of conflict?”
Hinting at his previously expressed fears that the Army may become burned out
by the pressures of fighting two wars simultaneously, General Dannatt
emphasised the need that soldiers and their families are cared for properly
and given time to train for other types of warfare. “We need an army in
being in five and ten years’ time, not just the memory of one that expended
itself in the middle of the current decade,” he said.
“British soldiers should always expect the nation, the Army and their
commanders to treat them fairly, to value and respect them as individuals
and to sustain and reward them and their families with appropriate
conditions of service,” he said.
The remarks were made during an address to the conference on future land
warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall. The MoD banned
the media from attending because it wanted General Dannatt and other
speakers to be able to discuss key issues away from the glare of publicity.
Whitehall insiders told The Times that the MoD was worried about the
conference leading to unpalatable headlines the next day.
General Dannatt, who is approaching his first anniversary as Chief of the
General Staff, said he believed that the general public had not yet grasped
that Britain’s Armed Forces were engaged “in a wider conflict that may last
for a generation”, which meant looking again at the structure and equipping
of the services.
Referring to the Government’s expeditionary strategy for the Armed Forces,
first outlined in 1998, he said: “The heady appeal of ‘go first, go fast, go
home’ has to be balanced with a willingness and a structure to ‘go strong
and go long’.” He said that the Army was “enmeshed” in helping to construct
a modern Islamic state “in the tinderbox that is Iraq in the face of
extremism and jihad [holy war]”.
He added: “We are doing this in a region perched precariously above a large
proportion of the world’s remaining supply of oil. So it is, indeed, some
high-octane context that we find surrounding current events.”
He also hinted at the threat posed by Islamist extremism within Britain. “The
threats and challenges to our society are . . . global and have sympathisers
in many societies and countries, including at home,” he said.
General Dannatt said that these threats could not be resolved by military
means alone but required a “battle of hearts and minds”, adding: “These
threats do not just face us abroad . . . increasingly we have identified
that we need to understand our own home front.”
He underlined the importance of maintaining the highest standards. “The
British Army is currently held in high esteem by our nation but this is
fragile and under no circumstances must we take this for granted,” he said.
In May he had made clear his dismay at the damage to the Army’s reputation
caused by the fatal beating by British soldiers of Baha Musa, the Iraqi
hotel receptionist who was arrested by a patrol from The Queen’s Lancashire
Regiment and subjected to 36 hours of ill-treatment at a temporary detention
centre in Basra in September 2003. He suffered more than 90 injuries before
dying of asphyxiation.
After the acquittal of all but one of the seven soldiers charged in connection
with Mr Musa’s death, General Dannatt said that the investigation would go
on to find the culprits, and he attacked the fall in standards and
discipline that led to the brutal treatment of the Iraqi detainee.
In his June speech, he said: “The public will not continue to support the use
of force in their name unless the Army is trusted and respected, and this
may be increasingly difficult to gain. It is, therefore, vital that we, as
an army, know what we stand for — thus our core values of selfless
commitment, courage, discipline, integrity, loyalty and respect for others
are increasingly important as the foundation on which success will be built.”
He concluded: “The challenge of this generation is as great as any that have
gone before us in the last century. It is a battle of ideas, and the
battleground will be unpredictable.
“We need to be prepared for a very wide range of tasks, from warfighting . . .
operations to low-level combat within a complex environment, whilst
critically maintaining the support of the population, the consent of the
nation and maintaining our own values and reputation.”
Opium increases
— Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where 6,000 British
troops are based, has become the biggest source of illicit drugs in the
world, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said yesterday
— The UN organisation said that Helmand had produced more than
half of Afghanistan’s opium, which increased this year to 8,200 tonnes
compared with last year’s official figure of 6,100, a 34 per cent rise.
Afghan opium generates 93 per cent of the world’s heroin trade.
— Despite the presence of British and other troops and an
objective of eliminating the opium crops, the area of cultivation increased
this year by 17 per cent to 193,000 hectares (477,000 acres)
— The US says that Afghanistan has more land producing drugs than
Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined
Scott of USA writes of loss of oil production due to "flooding'. This is a new one on me. I thought it was to do with oil running out, ie. 'peak oil' .
How does 'flooding' affect oil production? After all, a significant proportion of the world's oil is extracted from the bottom of the sea.
bill evans, Bristol, UK
"Population Warfare" ever heard of it?
It is the current underlying problem in the middle east.
We have for so long said Democracy! One Person One Vote! and we have failed to see the flaw that our enemy has grasped with sticky fingers.
The mother of 17 in Gaza knows that her children will increase her palestinian power over that of the mother of 2 in Isreal. The Islamic multi wife baby factory is rolling and the numbers have swelled to the point that islamic youth must compete or be left behind and they choose to move to non muslim lands and bring their ways with them. More of Europe will be filled with the violent Islamic youth who bring their old culture with them and deny the right of your own culture because they were taught that only they have the right view of heaven. One day the numbers will add up on the side of those who have moved in quietly and you will wake up to be a minority in your own land under the rule of the imams because the overwhelming majority says so.
Bob, Gaza, Gaza
Afghanistan and the Taliban is the single most important battlefield there is today,. If that is left to return to the chaos of the past, then bin Laden and his money will ensure the terrorist training camps are rebuilt.
it needs a 'hearts and minds' policy to defeat the insurgents and get that country onto its feet again with more than just military work. Hospitals and roads, schools and an alternative to warlord driven opium as the cash crop. In the meantime the West needs to start buying up and shipping out the opium that the farmers are growing.
Why not? We have a constant diamorphine shortage and cancer patients suffer needlessly. The Afghan farmers make the raw material. Buy and export their product, deny it to heroin factories, and eventually work to replacing that crop with something more productive.
Sensible?
Roy Ellor, Salford, UK
For your information Ian, the West has been at war with that 'faith' since the latter's inception 1400 or so years ago. The war will continue with occasional short and long periods of truce.
Allowing a potential fifth column into Europe is what makes this period of the war so different. In addition to this and inextricably linked is the loss of faith on the part of the West.
To put it simply it will become increasingly harder to get the fewer and fewer working-class Englishmen to die for causes such as 'diversity' 'multi-culturalism' etc., when the latter manifests itself in such absurdities as this country refusing to repatriate Islamist terrorists or demanding the release of them from our allies.
Stephen, Ipswich,
The General is right. It is a battle of ideas and more truly a matter of theology. Globalisation brings suddenly humanity, the whole one, on the same stage with deep differences and the first one is theology. Hence these parts are face to face with up to now some radical differences. The problem is not who is right, the problem is that one says theology and secular power are separate, the other maintain they are merged. Remember the 20th century's conflicts where politics and economics where separate matters for the ones but merged for the socialists. In fact socialist were and still are the one who can not grasp power normally and then are enticing the poor to erase the economics order. Saying this I know it is still much more complicated.
Bernard, luxembourg, luxembourg
The Army requires more pseudo teams to infiltrate the region winning the war by stealth and hearts and minds. Ground forces are easily identified and should only be used when a particular "contact has been successfull" and enemy forces have been subdued by other means. The rest of the times kept in robust armoured personnel carriers. The South Africans (Armscor) have some excellent C.O.I.N. vehicles of an anti mine/rpg defence capability.
bugsy, Burley-in-Wharfedale, West Yorkshire
British imperialism is a robust instinct. Whether or not there is any purpose to it we seem driven to invade, occupy, destabilise, subvert and manipulate. To what end ? We have no divine right to impose our political structures on independent states. The moment we leave Iraq another Saddam will emerge, and may even stabilise the country, making us look pretty foolish in the process. And it will have cost us over £10b to achieve exactly what ?
Ubi, Edinburgh, UK
When will the NATO armed forces and political leaders realise that this war can only be won by stopping the manifestation of hatred at its source. The madrassas of Pakistan and Afghanistan preaching this mutated version of violent Islam churn out generation upon generation of angry young people. Where is the peace and love for people of all faiths that we are told Islam represents? These distorted views preached by anti-western imams to impressionable youths needs to be stopped and quickly.
Ricardo Alves, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, UK
Why is Britain< the US and some other countries carrying the full burden when other countries ie.
France and Germany have severe restrictions on
what they are allowed to do and were they can go.
Barry Holmes, Christchurch, New Zealand
Blair has a lot to answer for. He has swanned off into the sunset to promote himself once again to an American audience, meanwhile our military lads are exposed to an ever increasing danger with an ever increasing number of deaths and injuries.
After more than a decade of political socialism we have succumbed to the 'human rights' act brought about by our former 'lefties'. An Act which benefits the criminal and disadvantages the victims of crime, whilst keeping the lawyers in a sublime financial state to which they have become dangerously accustomed.
Despite all this the odds are on a Labour government being returned to power at the next election.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
trevorjd, Torbay, UK
What we really need to know is the reasons why we are contemplating a generation of strife in Afghanistan. What is the AIM? All servicemen have it drilled into them from their earliest training to "Select and maintain the AIM"! Where are the much loved "Mission Statements" or are we just blundering around getting our young men killed and wounded, with no end in sight and the white poppy growers not taking the slightest notice of our (and others) efforts to stop them growing their heinous crops.
Norman McKay, Biggin Hill, Kent , England
With current casualty figures, Gen. Dannatt has got it about right , a generation of this continued futile confict will result in no troops to send home. Mr Brown has got it wrong - denying the British People, who did not back our particiption, the basic precept of democracy.
Edward Pelc, Abindon,
Chuck Unsworth : who loves you baby? Just dropped by to tell you democracy can be imposed by force of arms. Have you forgotten Germany, Japan, Italy? They were lot tougher nuts to crack than Iraq. Not to fear Chuckie: the word "AmerICAN" ends in "I Can." And we will even if you can't. Have a nice day.
Robert Burnettrn, las Vegas, Nevada usa
if the good general thinks the British public don't grasp the fact that this is a long-term conflict then he has sadly misjudged the very population he depends on for support. We know this is a war that can last for a generation or more. What we don't know is the objective and the exit criteria. We divered troops before beating the Taleban decisively, to the cost of our troops. We have not provided a viable economy to replace the illegal drug trade because western pharmas will not allow the introduction of safe drugs based on a substance that cannot be patented. We can't get out of Iraq until the oil supply is secure and it never will be while it is in the hands of someone else.
We know the facts - we don't know what our political and military leadership are going to do about the situation other than wring their hands and try to shift the blame to someone else.
KR, Stockport,
We went to Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaida. But suddenly, killing Taliban seems okay. Did Taliban attack New York on 9/11?
Perhaps when another million innocents have been killed, then we shall go back to negotiations. Afterall, they just muslim lives.
Salisu, Abuja,
At least the Generals understand the geopolitical reality of the Middle East even if the British population doesn't.
If Afghanistan and Iraq collapse to leave the Taliban and Iran in control of this historically strategic region, the Western World will never be the same.
The Western powers are having to suffer the demoralization of their populations and the exhaustion of their armies while the Iranians sit back and wait. The Talliban and other insurgents are prepping and softening the battle fields for Iranian armies and "advisors." Just wait for Iran to suggest that it is ready to "help" in Iraq!
Now is not the time to falter in will or courage.
Scott, Durham, NC, USA
The Dannatt view is very interesting, but seems isolated in context. The Royal Navy is hanging its cap on two new aircraft carriers, but we will have to wait and see whether they carry aircraft manned by men, or, pilotless variations. There seems to be nothing new on the horizon for the Royal Air Force so its difficult for the public at large to see how each service will interface with each other. The nuclear deterrent I agree with as money well spent, but if I were advising Dannatt I would be guiding him to look at conflict due to global warming, rising ocean levels, displacement of entire populations in the Middle East and loss of oil production due to flooding - all in the next 50 years, or sooner.
Weaver, Hong Kong,
International Laws are in place that would have prevented this Most pervese of conflicts from being mounted. It is with shame and regret that the rule of law is thrown aside by those that hold power. That power has become corrupted as the checks and balance have not been strong enough to rain in its tyrannical course. Power is corrupting while absolute power is absolute in its corruption. We need strong minds and strong leadership to stear our course back to one of reason. These wars cannot be justified or reasoned over as they should never have begun. Has history taught us nothing. Our Great nations in the eyes of those we repress are the less for it.
Mark, Gateshead, Tyne Wear
We are engaged in the 3rd World War. It isn't going to end anytime soon.
Martin, London,
Yes, but what about those feisty "Faroe Islanders". Anybody that eats Dolphins and beats Scotland in the Euro soccer qualifiers is a force to be reckoned with. Don't you think? What is the MOD disability payout for a fleshwound inflicted by a Dolphin? A couple of million squid I expect.
Bob, Twickenham,
The pretence that Islam is the enemy is going to end up in a lot of people on both sides getting killed. These countries (Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Iran) were never a threat to the UK - certainly no more so than Zimbabwe.
It would be a lot less painful to learn to get by on less oil and to stop pretending that the oil reserves are infinite.
Alfred, Ryde, Isle of Wight, UK
What a depressing way to look at the world.
Tom Whittwell, London, England
Had we never given in to Jinnah 60 years ago Afghanistan would be India's problem. This is the denouement of Partition in 1947 which never allowed Britain to dis-engage merely to surrender control.
Contrary to "Ian" in Singapore this is nothing to do with "faith" but everything to do with tribal politics and economic interests which infect the regime in Kabul and their favoured warlords.
The real issue is whether British society will hold together as the Government tests it to destruction or whether Europe will see civil wars over coming decades as popular anger explodes.
TomTom, Leeds, England
The cost to our nation in terms of lives lost and pure money is unsustainable. For that and wider reasons, equally important such as causing misery for thousands of people caught up in the fighting, we must leave as soon as possible. The UN should be asked to replace us and if the requisite vote is not achieved, then the world's political community deem the conflict to be not worthy of international lives and expense.
John Fraser, London, UK
It is interesting to read the comment "we are doing this in a region perched precariously above a large proportion of the world's remaining supply of oil". Was this coincidental to the need to remove the (trumped-up) WMD or to restore democracy, or whatever excuse you like to pick for the invasion of Iraq? In view of the remarks about 'a generation of conflict' one wonders whether areas with newly discovered oil reserves anywhere in the world will need to have imaginary WMD removed or democracy restored.
Ronald E. Watts, Nicosia, Cyprus
The UK forces are fighting a war against the Taliban which is financed by the output of the thriving Afghan heroin trade. One of the markets for that heroin is the UK where unknown numbers are its consumers.
Particularly if I had a son or daughter serving in Afghanistan, I would regard those UK consumers as fifth columnists- whether they intended to be or not- and I would expect the UK government to penalise heroin (or similar) dealing or possession accordingly.
Chris, Essex, UK
Dannatt is right to highlight these matters. It is very wrong for MoD to concern itself with headlines rather than the content of the lecture, but true to form.
What Dannatt has not done is to directly accuse the political heirarchy of incompetence. That is magnanimous. However, it's clear to all parties (or should be) that without proper political leadership and foresight these troubles will only multiply. It's equally clear that following the American lead in these two wars has done nothing but lasting damage to Britain and its international reputation.
In neither of these two military excursions has 'success' been defined. Even now, Gordon Brown has refused to detail what he means by this term. Yet in the absence of 'success' there is no withdrawal without ignomy.
Democracy cannot be imposed by force of arms. It is inane to believe so. American foreign policy (and hence that of Britain) has for many years been based on this foolhardy notion. It's time for a change.
Chuck Unsworth, London,
Did none of the military brass watch Star Trek when they were younger?
We broke the prime directive & are facing the consequences.
Mark, Woking, UK
Letters of Marque and Reprisal, anyone?
L. A. Dietz, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
How on earth do you" fight" something that you do not see ?!
That something is "faiths"!
It has no beginning and certainly has no end --- just like the
WAR that Britain was sucked in and now could not find a way to get out .
I do not think a decade is enough if the faiths of such nations
remain as they are. Conversely if the faiths change tomorrow
you can go home !
One way or the other there must be an exit ! In what form and in what manner time will tell !
Ian, singapore, singapore