Army chief attacks US over Iraq

Army chief attacks US over IraqBy Con Coughlin and Neil Tweedie
Last Updated: 1:56am BST 01/09/2007
General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.
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General Sir Mike Jackson: 'All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste'
The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical". Sir Mike's comments - made in his forthcoming autobiography Soldier, serialised exclusively in The Daily Telegraph - represent the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.
His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003. Sir Mike, who took command of the British Army one month before US-led forces invaded Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq". Crucially, the general writes, he refused to deploy enough troops to maintain law and order after the collapse of Saddam's regime, and discarded detailed plans for the post-conflict administration of Iraq that had been drawn up by the US State Department. In the book, Sir Mike says he believes the entire US approach to tackling global terrorism is "inadequate" because it relies too heavily on military power at the expense of nation-building and diplomacy. His outspoken remarks are likely to increase tensions between the British and US military over policy in Iraq. Last month American officials claimed that British forces had been defeated in Basra and had surrendered control of Iraq's second city to lawless militias and criminal gangs. Speaking on the eve of the book's publication, Sir Mike last night defended the record of Britain's military deployment in Basra.
"I don't think that's a fair assessment at all," he said of claims made by American officials that UK forces had failed. "What has happened in the south, as throughout the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied that their state of training and development was appropriate.
"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy. It remains just in Basra for that to happen." Even so it emerged yesterday that the Pentagon was planning to deploy extra forces to Basra to protect Iraq's crucial oil fields amid growing fears in Washington that Britain is preparing to withdraw its forces from southern Iraq. Sir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam's overthrow was down to the Pentagon's refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military's "surge" the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure. Sir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush's decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department. "All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters "it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army. "Once you had decapitated Saddam Hussein's regime, a model democratic society would inevitably emerge." He and other senior British officers were opposed to the Pentagon's decision to disband the Iraqi army after Saddam's overthrow, a decision he says "was very short-sighted … We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition." Sir Mike also reveals that he and other senior officers had doubts about the weapons of mass destruction dossier presented by the Blair government in late 2002. "Its release caused a stir in military circles," reveals Sir Mike, particularly the suggestion that the UK could face a threat of attack at 45 minutes' notice. "We all knew that it was impossible for Iraq to threaten the UK mainland. Saddam's Scud missiles could barely have reached our bases on Cyprus, and certainly no more distant target." Sir Mike says he satisfied himself on the legality of invading Iraq by careful study of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and concluded that action was "legitimate under international law without a 'second' resolution. "Having had some part to play in putting Slobodan Milosevic into a cell in The Hague, I had no wish to be his next-door neighbour."


Has the White House shaken in their shoes...

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Top Secret Codeword, the highest UK classification

ran Supplied Missile that Hit UK Helicopter :Richard Miniter in Washington and Michael Smith -June 24, 2007 - The Sunday Times

A royal navy helicopter that crashed in flames in Basra last year, killing all five on board, was shot down by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile supplied to Iraqi militants by Iran, according to US officials. America knew that the Mahdi Army, the radical Shi’ite militia, had obtained the shoulder-launched missile from the Iranians but failed to tell the British because of a row between the State Department and the CIA over the reliability of the source, US intelligence sources said.

The Lynx helicopter, from 847 Naval Air Squadron, based at Yeovilton, Somerset, was carrying a three-man crew plus Wing Commander John Coxen, the most senior officer to die in Iraq, and Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, the first British servicewoman killed in action since the second world war. Witnesses told an inquest in Oxford last week that they saw a ball of yellow flame, typical of a particular type of missile, heading for the Lynx. Private Stuart Drummond said: “I thought it was a missile. The helicopter exploded. It was engulfed in flames and went down.” The families of those killed were frequently asked to leave the inquest as secret details of the missile and the failure of the helicopter’s defensive systems were discussed. The report of a board of inquiry into the incident is heavily edited and was classified Top Secret Codeword, the highest UK classification.
This was because telephone intercepts, intelligence reports and pieces of the missile recovered from the scene confirmed that it came from Iran, the American sources said. Three days before the attack, State Department officials interviewed an Iraqi linked to the Mahdi Army who told them Iran had supplied the militia with the Russian surface-to-air missile. It was intended specifically for the Mahdi Army to shoot down a British helicopter, codenamed Operation Hawk-Taking. The intelligence was not passed on to the British because the CIA dismissed the Iraqi detainee as “a well-known fabricator”, the sources alleged.
The allegations of Iranian involvement come amid increasing concern over Iran’s role in disrupting coalition operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Des Browne, the defence secretary, confirmed the scale of Iranian involvement in southern Iraq earlier this month. “Well over 80% of the violence is targeted against the British forces, much of it quite specifically influenced by the Iranians,” he said. “We stand between them and their ambitions to share the spoils of what is potentially one of the richest cities in the world and to show the local population that they can force us out would be quite a coup for them. It’s in their interests to have their proxies drive us out of Iraq.” British and US troops fought pitched battles with the Mahdi Army near the southern town of Amara last week as they broke up a network smuggling equipment from Iran to make armour-piercing shaped-charge bombs. While it is widely known that Iran has been attempting to influence events in southern Iraq by backing attacks on British forces, suggestions that Iran is backing the Taliban in Afghanistan have, until recently, been given less credence by UK officials. Browne went further than any British official on Iranian support for the Taliban. He said: “It is a changing pattern in that the Iranian influence is very important. We have evidence to suggest that they support the Taliban.” Robert Gates, his US counterpart, made similar accusations, saying the extent of arms shipment across the Iranian border into Afghanistan suggested that the Iranian government was aware they were taking place. Gates, a former CIA director, said he had seen recent intelligence analysis “that makes it pretty clear there’s a fairly substantial flow of weapons”. Coalition forces have intercepted at least two large shipments of weapons coming into Afghanistan from Iran, one close to the border with Iran and the other near Kandahar. It was left to the State Department to make the strongest allegations, with Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state, claiming there was “irrefutable evidence” that the Iranian government was involved in shipping weapons to the Taliban. British officials, who had previously hesitated to suggest that Iran supported the Taliban, said they were seeing evidence of a shift in Tehran’s position. That appeared to be confirmed by Admiral Ali Shamkhani, principal defence adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. Shamkhani told the US journal Defense News that Iran had “blocked US moves” in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Iran’s “partner of choice” in Afghanistan is the United Front, the Taliban’s most implacable foe, Tehran is hedging its bets. It is also friendly with the government of President Hamid Karzai and invests heavily in Afghanistan, particularly in the west around Herat. Its support for the Taliban is seen as similar to that of Paki-stan’s, based on a recognition that in five or six years’ time America and its allies will be gone and the Taliban will not only still exist but could be in control of much of Afghanistan. Officials said that Iran was also happy to be seen to be “tweaking the tail” of Britain and America. A British soldier died after a roadside bomb attack on his patrol in Basra yesterday.

Iraq Police: Iranian-Made Bombs Used in Attack that Killed 4 Britons :

BAGHDAD — The Basra police commander on Friday said the roadside bomb used in an attack that killed four British soldiers had not been used in southern Iraq before, and his description of the deadly weapon indicated it was a feared Iranian-designed explosively formed projectile.
Anbar province has been a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency but many tribes in the region recently switched allegiance, with large numbers of military-age men joining the police force and Iraqi army in a bid to expel Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters. The U.S. military has claimed Iran is supplying Shiite militia fighters in Iraq with explosively formed projectiles, known as an EFP. They hurl a molten, fist-sized copper slug capable of piercing armored vehicles. The four British soldiers — including two women — were killed Thursday as the American military announced the deaths of eight more U.S. soldiers since Tuesday. The Basra region police commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Moussawi, said two similar bombs had been discovered Friday morning; one was discovered on the road leading to Basra Palace, the compound that houses a British base and the British and U.S. consulates. A second was uncovered in the western Hayaniyah district where Thursday's attack occurred. The area is known as a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The reported deaths of the American forces and the bomb attack on the British unit marked the start of the eighth week of the joint U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding territory. Also Thursday, the U.S. military confirmed an American helicopter carrying nine people had been downed south of Baghdad and that four were injured. An Iraqi army official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the helicopter went down after it came under fire from anti-aircraft guns near the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The U.S. military did not confirm that account. This the ninth U.S. helicopter to go down in Iraq this year. The U.S. military has studied new evasive techniques, fearing insurgents have acquired more sophisticated weapons or have figured out how to use their arms in new and effective ways. Prime Minister Tony Blair called the Basra attack an "act of terrorism" and suggested it may have been the work of militiamen linked to Iran. He stopped short of accusing Tehran, however. "Now it is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an act committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime, so I make no allegation in respect of that particular incident," Blair said. He added, however, "This is maybe the right moment to reflect on our relationship with Iran."
One U.S. soldier died and two were wounded in a roadside bombing Thursday in restive Diyala province north of Baghdad, the military said. Four others died Wednesday in two roadside bomb explosions in southern Baghdad and north of the capital, while a fifth was killed by small-arms fire in the eastern part of the city. Two other soldiers were killed by small-arms fire on Tuesday — one in eastern Baghdad and another on foot patrol in the southern outskirts of the capital.
The deadly attack against the British patrol in southern Iraq was the greatest loss of life for Britain in more than four months and it cast a shadow over celebrations marking the return of 15 British sailors seized by Iran two weeks ago in disputed waters in the Persian Gulf.
"Just as we rejoice at the return of our 15 service personnel so today we are also grieving and mourning for the loss of our soldiers in Basra, who were killed as the result of a terrorist act," Blair said. The British patrol struck a roadside bomb and was hit by small-arms fire early Thursday in the southern city of Basra, British military spokeswoman Capt. Katie Brown said. The explosion created a 9-foot crater in the road. Hours after the attack, a British soldier's helmet was still laying in the street among dozens of spent bullets. The latest casualties raised to 140 the number of British forces to die in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion — 109 in combat.
Blair has announced that Britain will withdraw about 1,600 troops from Iraq over the next few months and hopes to make other cuts to its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer.