Military fatigue
BRITAIN’S HIGHEST-ranking soldier has attacked his
government in the middle of a war. Clearly, there are deep divisions at
the top of the British establishment. In an interview with the Daily
Mail (13 October), General Sir Richard Dannatt stated that the mission
in Iraq has failed: "We were invaders, now we’re occupiers", we should
"get ourselves out sometime soon". He linked the occupation to the rise
of terrorism internationally, including in Britain, something the New
Labour government emphatically denies.
Going public in this way has polarised commentators.
The British ruling class prefers to keep its disputes behind closed
doors. Such a bald move points to a desire to rein in the arrogant New
Labour upstarts. It shows that Tony Blair is increasingly out of step
with his paymasters.
Dannatt has received a lot of support from high up
the military and political establishment. Lord Brammall, Chief of the
General Staff during the Falklands (Malvinas) war, said: "The balance of
power in the region has swung to Iran’s advantage. [Iraq] has lost us a
lot of goodwill and trust in the Arab world. It has not actually
enhanced the war against terrorism but made it worse… It is also
exacerbating our problems in Afghanistan… " (The Daily Telegraph, 14
October) Former Labour armed forces minister, Lord Lewis Moonie, said:
"Iraq is a busted flush and there is nothing we can do except patch it
up and get out. Sir Richard did no more than say in public what many in
the ministry of defence and foreign office say in private". (Mail on
Sunday, 15 October)
A number of senior Tories (who backed the war on
Iraq) cynically welcomed Dannatt’s call for troops to be withdrawn,
further isolating Blair. A cross-party group of MPs is demanding an
emergency debate in parliament.
Blair tried to maintain that there is no difference
between his position and Dannatt. Yet they are diametrically opposed.
Blair is clear, at least publicly: British troops will stay in Iraq
"until the job is done". His slavish devotion to Bush continues. But the
alarm bells were ringing in Washington, with frantic phone calls in the
middle of the night from the White House to Downing Street.
Dannatt opened a floodgate, an army website
inundated by blogs from troops: "Dannatt gets my vote! We were lied to
when it all started and we are still lied to today! The Dear Leader
should resign now". "Right, when B’liar is put up against the wall, can
I shoot him?" "Bloody well said. B’liar, your legacy is secured, it’s
called Iraq". (The Independent, 14 October)
This reflects the deep unpopularity of the war, a
prevalent view in the army that it is being overstretched for the sake
of political expediency, and the impact this is having on troop morale
and recruitment.
A year ago, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said there
would be 3,000 British troops in Iraq now. Yet around 8,000 remain, with
hundreds more in the Gulf, 5,600 in Afghanistan (as well as 8,500 still
in Northern Ireland). A quarter of the armed forces is actively
deployed. The MoD is breaking its own rule of a two-year gap between
six-month deployments. Some forces are being sent back after a break of
eleven months.
There is outrage at the gulf between reality and the
delusional world inhabited by government ministers. Des Browne, minister
for war and occupation, said that Afghanistan was "harder than
expected". Foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, admitted that troops
faced a "tough fight" and that the Taliban had used "unexpected
tactics". (She wasn’t expecting them to fight back, presumably.) "What
our commanders are telling us is that they are stretched, but not
overstretched", she said. (The Guardian, 22 September)
Brigadier Ed Butler, commander of British forces in
Helmand province, was blunter: "The intensity and ferocity… [are] far
greater than in Iraq on a daily basis". (The Independent on Sunday, 10
September) A memo from a MoD thinktank says: "British armed forces are
effectively held hostage in Iraq… and we are now fighting (and arguably
losing or potentially losing) on two fronts", Iraq and Afghanistan. (The
Guardian, 29 September) Captain Leo Docherty, former aide to a senior
commander in southern Afghanistan, resigned in protest at the
"grotesquely clumsy" campaign against the Taliban.
An editorial in the Financial Times (5 September)
voiced the consternation of sections of the ruling class. It noted the
increased use in Afghanistan of Iraqi insurgent techniques, including
roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and that the commander in the south
described the fighting as the worst involving British forces "since the
Korean war or the second world war": "Yet, at the start of the year,
John Reid, then defence secretary, expressed the hope British troops
would be able to rebuild Afghanistan and leave ‘without firing a shot’."
British forces have been setting up ‘advanced
platoon houses’, hoping to create ever-expanding spheres of control. But
these have drawn relentless attacks and the tactic is being abandoned as
troops retreat to more easily defended bases.
The Taliban has been strengthened by the opium poppy
eradication programme which has alienated destitute farmers, their crops
destroyed without compensation. Reportedly, British troops have tried to
distance themselves from the US forces carrying this out. But all
foreign fighters are seen as occupiers. A village elder in Helmand
pointed out: "The Westerners cannot tell the difference between our
tribes, how should we be able to tell the difference between theirs?"
(The Independent on Sunday, 24 September)
Over a century ago, the British empire was thrown
out of Afghanistan. The Russians were driven out 17 years ago, and they
had tens of thousands of troops. It is happening again. The highest
price, however, is being paid in the deaths and shattered lives of
countless Afghani people, and by British troops and their families.
There should be no British soldiers there or in Iraq. They must be
withdrawn.
In monetary terms, the government says the annual
cost of operations in Iraq is £1 billion, with southern Afghanistan
costing another billion. These figures are rising.
The troops – the vast majority, working-class youth
– are learning a harsh lesson in the nature of the British state. Sent
off with hypocritical patriotic speeches from the likes of Blair, they
are dumped in a hellhole. Besieged troops have run out of food, water
and other basic supplies, their families even sending food parcels.
Soldiers were sent to Iraq with the wrong camouflage and boots which
fell apart. Half of all troops, many on less than the minimum wage of
£3.30 an hour, have to buy their own extra equipment, including scarves,
jackets and trousers. In April 2003, Sergeant Steve Roberts was killed
by ‘friendly fire’ in Iraq. A few days earlier he had been ordered to
hand in his body armour because it is in such short supply. It would
probably have saved his life.
More than 1,500 soldiers who served in Iraq are
suffering from psychiatric illnesses. James Potrowski was sent to Iraq
in 2003. On his return, his mother and sister sought help from the army.
They were ignored even when they reported that he was sleeping in the
garden and was suffering horrifying flashbacks of an Iraqi girl clinging
to her father’s dead body. Potrowski stole firearms from his barracks to
‘guard the house’. After a police raid he was sentenced to seven years
in prison. In a bitter irony, the family was held under the Terrorism
Act after he threatened to blow up a police station. (The Independent on
Sunday, 6 August)
Daniel Twiddy was injured during the invasion of
Iraq by ‘friendly fire’: "Once you are discharged the MoD doesn’t want
anything to do with you and the attitude is: let’s just get another
number in to replace this one. They should care, they blew me up but
they don’t want anything to do with me". Twiddy had to pay £60 a week
out of his own pocket for medical treatment. An estimated 5,000 military
personnel are currently on NHS waiting lists. (The Independent on
Sunday, 8 October)
Young British soldiers are being ordered to kill and
be killed for Blair’s policy and prestige, for the sake of the US
economy and imperial power on the world stage. They are utterly
exploited by this belligerent, anti-working class government. Chewed up
in war they are spat out on the streets of Britain when they return.
Their anger, reflected in their emails and by their families, needs to
be channelled into the anti-war movement, and into building a socialist
future to put an end to this brutal inhumanity.
Manny Thain
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