Afghanistan war is 'cuckoo', says Blair's favourite general

The army revolt against Blair's military campaigns shows no sign of abating. The latest attack on his policy comes from General the Lord Guthrie in his first interview since quitting as Chief of the Defence Staff five years ago. He has described Britain's campaign in Afghanistan as "cuckoo". This comes hot on the heels of the recent comments by Sir Richard Dannatt that the Brits should pull out of Iraq.

However, his comments seem even more harsh that those of Sir Richard.

'Anyone who thought this was going to be a picnic in Afghanistan - anyone who had read any history, anyone who knew the Afghans, or had seen the terrain, anyone who had thought about the Taliban resurgence, anyone who understood what was going on across the border in Baluchistan and Waziristan [should have known] - to launch the British army in with the numbers there are, while we're still going on in Iraq is cuckoo,' Guthrie said.

In a unprecedented show of scepticism towards Blair, he said the Prime Minister's promise to give the army 'anything it wants' was unrealistic. 'I'm sure he meant what he said. He is not dishonest. But there is no way you can magic up trained Royal Air Force crews, or trained soldiers, quickly. You can't magic up helicopters, because there aren't any helicopters,' said Guthrie, promoted from chief of army staff to become overall head of the military for Blair's first term of office.

Guthrie said Britain was 'reaping the whirlwind' for assuming too great a 'peace dividend' after the Cold War and risks being ill-equipped for a whole new set of dangers.

Nor did he limit his comments to Afghanistan, he also spoke of British policy regarding Iraq, in which he seemed to undermine Sir Richard's desire for an early pullout, seeing the situation as even more dire than Sir Richard had:

He also cast doubt on suggestions of an early pullout from Iraq, saying that Britain could not afford to leave a 'bloodbath' behind.

In Iraq, he said, there were three possible scenarios for British forces. The first would be an immediate pullout and the prospect of civil war. The second was to partition the country, but that would risk the slaughter of minority communities in each of the new states. 'We would have to live with it for ever if we left and they were put to the sword,' he said.

That left the hope of somehow creating a more loosely 'federated' Iraq - a 'last chance saloon' option, but one which Guthrie felt might still be workable. 'We have to stick with Iraq not least because in international terms the price of failure is far greater than in Afghanistan'. Iraq could cause problems in the region for years, he said, with implications for Jordan and Turkey, as well as for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

I can't think of any comparable time when the British forces had such senior officers all going public against the government's official line. The British army, by all accounts, is seriously undermanned in Afghanistan and - with winter approaching - it is known that the Taliban are planning a winter offensive.

This will be why Sir Richard and many others have been pleading for troops to be moved from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The British army's history in Afghanistan is not a great one, though to be fair to the Brits, no-one I can think of has a good record of trying to invade and occupy that country. I think Genghis Khan at his peak managed to hold Afghanistan for precisely a year.

However, with winter approaching there is a definite note of anxiety creeping into all these statements from army officials.

It also appears like a no win situation. Sir Richard has said we need to pull out of Iraq in order to have any chance of coping with the Taliban winter offensive. However, Lord Guthrie is warning that a pullout there will result in a bloodbath that will haunt us for years.

This is the consequence of overstretch that we were warned of. Blair and John Reid will continue to spout positives about our forces, but the leaders of our forces themselves seem determined to let us know that the policy they are being forced to adopt is not their own.

No army, especially one as depleted as the British, should be asked to fight two wars on two fronts. But that is precisely what Blair and Reid have done.

The consequence of that is about to be played out in Afghanistan this winter. God knows what's going to happen, but army chiefs seem anxious to remind us in advance that this is not their war plan.

That's a worry.

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