His plan — according to sources at the Ministry of Defence — was to put the case for Britain’s mission in Afghanistan, putting in context the leaked e-mails and video clips from soldiers in the field that have brought home the fierceness of the fighting.

Dannatt, who is chief of the general staff, wanted to explain the great efforts being made in the Afghan campaign and his belief that its objectives are commendable. The interview seemed uncontentious — a suitable way of reassuring the mothers and wives of serving soldiers that their loved ones are not risking their lives in a pointless cause.

In making his case, however, Dannatt contrasted Afghanistan with the quagmire of Iraq. The more he drew the contrasts, the more he shot holes in the policies of Tony Blair and his government.

The planning for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, he said, was “poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning”. The British military presence in Iraq “exacerbates the security problems”.

He blamed the situation in Iraq for making matters worse elsewhere, directly contradicting Blair. “I don’t say that the difficulties we are experiencing around the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them,” he said.

To cap it all, he pointed out that British troops went to Afghanistan at the invitation of its elected government; in Iraq the “military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in”.

He added: “The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy . . . Whether that was a sensible or naive hope history will judge. I don’t think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition.”

British troops, he concluded, should leave Iraq “soon”.

A committed Christian, he also made comments well outside his brief, talking of a “moral and spiritual vacuum in this country”.

The interview was explosive. It has long been the convention in Britain that military leaders take their gripes to ministers and never air them in public.

ON Thursday night, as newspaper first editions rolled off the presses, Downing Street was stunned. Blair called Des Browne, the defence secretary. In turn Browne called Dannatt, who was attending a dinner at HMS Raleigh, a Royal Navy training base in Cornwall. It was, says an army source, a forthright discussion. Dannatt was soon hurrying back to London.

In other circumstances a military officer defying his political master might have been sacked. But Blair was in no position to call all the shots. For while Downing Street was furious, the reaction among Dannatt’s own men was one of exultation. At last someone at the top had spoken out for the ordinary soldier — and there was nothing Blair could do about it.

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