British General Mike Jackson, the British former chief of general staff who retired last year, has a new book out that he's probably counting on to augment his retirement called "Soldier."
In an obvious attempt to create some controversy and gin up sales, the general has been doing interviews demonizing the Iraq War, and particularly ex-SecDef Donald Rumsfeld.
The Leftwing The Daily Telegraph is going to be serializing the book Monday, after publishing some excerpts and trumpeting an interview with the general on Saturday, so his efforts appear to be successful....especially since many Brits are looking for justification for the retreat of their army this month. Their navy, of course, scarpered after Iran took a few hostages and has never been back since, as I predicted.
The general claims Rumsfeld's handling of postwar Iraq was "intellectually bankrupt" and pointed to Rumsfeld as "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq."
Another retired Brit General, Tim Cross also jumped on the bandwagon. I'm sure he's not pleased that he didn't have a book deal, but he did his bit to cover the British retreat in an interview with The Sunday Mirror, slamming the United States over its Iraq policy, saying that it had been "fatally flawed."
"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," Cross said.
I understand the Brit's innate need to cover their retreat..I'd be embarassed too. But it's odd that Rumsfeld continues to be demonized.
Brigadier General Mark Scheid and
Jed Babbin are among a number of sources who've gone on record as saying that there were two plans to deal wth Iraq: the Rumsfeld/Cheney one that called for a punitive strike to take out Saddam's probable WMD's and military threat but not a long term occupation, and the one formulated by none other than SoS Colin Powell and Clinton's CIA holdover George Tenet, which called for an occupation and using Iraq as a model for `Arab democracy.'
President Bush chose door number 2, and then put Rumsfeld in charge of implementing a policy he was against from the start. In short, he's been a scapegoat.
As for two general's other remarks,I must admit they strike an odd note, considering Britain's military failures in Iraq, including the complete abrogation of their international naval committments in the Persian Gulf after Iran took a few hostages.
As of now, our loyal allies have completely failed in their mission to control Basra and southern Iraq. The entire area is controlled by the Iran proxy Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army and the Badr Force and the Brits are hunkered down in a redoubt near the Basra airport, and are awaiting orders to scuttle off home which Britain's Labour PM Gordon Brown will probably issue this month.
Of course, that's the sort of results you can expect when you cut your military back to the bone, something the Labour government has been particularly avid about, and something that occurred on General Jackson's watch, without him uttering so much as a peep. Of course, it could be that, like Rumsfeld, he doesn't make policy..he just follows the orders given to him by the head of his government and implements them.
People whom live in glass houses...Sir Winston would be embarassed.
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Ex Major General Tim Cross, General Janus Jackson , Major General Patrick Cordingley, ( who led the Desert Rats in the 1991 Gulf War the Mirror reminds us) , Malcolm Rifkind, Menzies Campbell, William Hague, foreign affairs spokesman for the Conservatives .... it is not sufficient to make the argument - it is necessary to win it.
The British politcial and military leadership signed off, indeed Parliament approved the illegal invasion which millions marched against. They signed up willingly, as brothers in arms with Dubya's gang, they accepted and often promulgated lies. They deceived the public with dossiers - they cannot cast off their responsibilities, conceal their cowardice by now calling the US policies , "intellectually bankrupt" or looking for a handy scapegoat.
This Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy will not wash. The whole illegal military endeavour, the invasion , designed to outflank diplomacy - merely a continuation of a rape that started with sanctions and no-fly zones was a conspiracy.
It was a conspiracy that the military leaders (however unwilling) failed to modify, it was a compact with a flawed and dishonest leadership - across all parties. Mealy mouthed apologies and casuistic explanations re-directing the blame cannot and must not be allowed.
Hello, Shutter..take a load off.
I agree with your premise that Britain's military and political leadership cannot use the scapegoating of American officials like Donald Rumsfeld to avoid their responsibilities and mistakes in judgment.
Britain agreed to come in, and shivving an ally in order to make a retreat look good or sell a few books.
However, I must admit it is interesting to see the distorted rationale for your conclusion, as if through a warped mirror but one that still reflects light.
You may find the following of interest: Between Iraq And A Hard Place - Why We Went, How It Got So Scrwed Up and Where It's Going
`Illegal invasion'? Not adequately thought out, perhaps, but hardly `illegal', unless one is a Saddam Hussein groupie. He was clearly violating the ceasefire agreement that ended his aggression in the First Gulf War an dwas firing on British and American planes, in itself a causus belli.
As far as `deceiving the public' I assume that you refer to the information presented that Saddam had WMDs. We can certainly agree that Saddam was no imminent threat, but the fact is that he was actively working on using the Oil For Food scam to buld up his conventional military, to support and harbor Islamic terrorism and to expand that WMD threat.
I might point out that the `millions marching' you refer to have a great deal to do with the chaos in Iraq and the fact that few compromising WMDs were found.
Because of the public tantrums promulgated by the Left (mostly in Britain, but we had `em here on this side of the pond as well)Saddam had 18 months to plan a guerilla war, hide sell or dispose of anything he wanted to (and remember, we already know that large amounts of unidentified military material were sent to Syria, from Saddam's own generals).
Saddam even emptied Iraq's jails of violent criminals and armed them on the eve of invasion.
And since we also know that al Qaeda functionaries like Imad Mugniyeh had free reign over Iraq and were in contact with Saddam, it's not too difficult to see Saddam setting up the framework for putting al Qaeda in Iraq in place.
All of this, of coure made things much more difficult for the men who did the hard slogging and actually defend freedom with their lives, rather than just talking about it.
The mismanagement in Iraq - which I've been fairly critical of on this site - is one thing,but mistakes happen in war. Bugging out, as the British are doing is one sure and certain way to encourage the enemy..especially a number of the wanna be jihadis on your home island.
Think about it.
ff
The Jihadists that the British turned tail and ran from pose an existential threat to the entire free world. The British may well rue the day that they chose to surrender. Unfortunately the American surrender is likely not far behind. Barring unforseen events we will all rue the day we surrendered to this terrorist army.
Rather than fight among ourselves adn attacking people personally for short term political gains we need to be working to find out why much of our intellegence. Also, instead of scapegoating Don Rumsfeld and other Aemrican officials we need to be standing together. The bottome line is Britian, the US, adn the free world will hang together or they will hang separately. If the British, the Americans, or anyone else think they can flee before a mortal enemy like this and not expcet suffer dire consequences, they are sadly mistaken.
So far this is shaping like the decade prior to WWII. The free nations of Western Europe thought they could appease Nazi Germany. They thought wrong. Surrender before the enemy in Iraq will end no better. At least, WWII had a happy ending and the free world won. God willing this one will end with the free world on top.
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