BBC - Army chief defends Iraq comments

brooklynite

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Fri Oct-13-06 03:15 AM
Original message

BBC - Army chief defends Iraq comments

The head of the British Army has defended his call for UK troops to withdraw from Iraq "sometime soon".

Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt told the BBC he aimed to "speak up for what is right for the Army" and not to break ranks with the government.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, he said the presence of UK troops in Iraq "exacerbates the security problems".

...snip...

Sir Richard told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme his comments in the newspaper interview about Iraq "were neither substantially new or substantially newsworthy".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6046822.stm

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Selatius

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Fri Oct-13-06 03:21 AM
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1. My God, a general who actually has the balls to stand up for the troops

Edited on Fri Oct-13-06 03:22 AM by Selatius

In the US military tradition, this is almost unheard. Military leaders often do not question their civilian masters so publicly in this manner over here.

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Lasher

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Fri Oct-13-06 03:37 AM
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2. It's October, Karl. Here's another surprise!

I guess they've managed to keep a lid on so much for so long, it's now like one of those fake cans of nuts that you open, and this springy thing jumps out and scares you.

I'm losing track of all the October surprises: Foley, Woodward's book, that other book about the GOP playing evangelicals for a pack of fools, North Korea nukes, Iraq in general, and now this. Have I missed anything?

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Kiouni

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Fri Oct-13-06 05:02 AM
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3. how do you argue against that?

denounce his comment my ass if anyone knows the state of their army its this guy.

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Kagemusha

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Fri Oct-13-06 06:16 AM
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5. There's exhaustive techniques for humiliating and running generals out.

I'm sure he's already being investigated to see if he has any "personal issues" in his life that might compromise his arguments. The equivalent of a "page problem" for example. Even rumors will help.

It's very dirty business but, well, generals simply aren't supposed to do this because it "undermines civilian authority" and so on. Undermines national policy set by elected officials. With this call for the upholding of democracy, foot soldiers (so to speak) perform these jobs with fanatical zeal because now it is the general who is the Enemy.

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Judi Lynn

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Fri Oct-13-06 05:10 AM
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4. The only thing our generals appear moved to protect is their careers

It has been a real education watching them come and go, almost always bowing and scraping, in the years since _Bush lied us into a filthy, cruel war.

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