Blair devastated as Army chief savages his approach to Iraq

You have to fully understand Tony Blair's position to truly appreciate the cartwheels that he is currently performing in order to extricate himself from the political hole dug by General Sir Richard Dannatt and his comments regarding the British presence in Iraq.

Blair has tied himself to George Bush's position that our presence there is helpful to the Iraqis and helps to reduce the violence; the theory being that, if we left, the whole situation would be a hell of a lot worse.

Dannatt, in effect, shot a hole in that theory, arguing that our presence in Iraq is actually making the situation worse and that we should leave "soon". In Dannatt's view, we have become the problem rather than the solution. This is the polar opposite to the position being propagated by Blair and Bush.

This presented Blair with a dilemma. What to do? Dannatt's comments are unprecedented for an army chief of staff and it is unacceptable for an army chief to attempt to publicly undermine his political masters as, in order for Britain to remain a functioning democracy, the civilians must be seen to be in charge of the military and not the other way round.

So the logical thing for Blair to have done would have been to fire him. However - and here we see Blair's real dilemma - how do you fire someone for, not only telling the truth, but for telling a truth that seems obvious to most of the country and a truth that as been welcomed by the majority of the armed forces:

Within hours of his comments being made public, the Army's unofficial website was packed with hundreds of blogs from troops voicing their support. The messages included: "Can Tony Blair recover from this and justify British presence in Iraq, without using the words 'I was wrong ...?'" Another said: "Dannatt gets my vote! Anyone care to disagree with him? We were lied to when it all started and we are still lied to today!"

Other serving soldiers were also quick to voice their relief at the general's intervention.

One senior officer said: "It has been decades since someone senior actually stood up for us, the soldiers and their families.

"People need to take him seriously. This is not a man who is thinking about his career. This is a man who passionately and clearly believes he should tell the truth and represent all of us."

Clearly, this is a situation that requires political tiptoeing of which Blair has proven himself a past master. So what did Blair do?

He agreed with Dannatt!

Mr Blair said: "I have to say, I've read his transcript of his interview on the radio this morning, and I agree with every word of it."

This is Blair attempting to imply that political editors have cherry-picked General Dannatt's comments and that, if we all read the transcript, we would all see this. However, the cherry-picking is actually being done by Blair himself, deciding that Dannatt had said we should all leave Iraq eventually and that this is basically the government's position. Blair however is ignoring the central point on which he, Dannatt, and President Bush violently differ.

Does our presence in Iraq aid or hinder peace?

The US were quick to pick up on this and circulate Tony's reading of what Dannatt actually said, with Tony Snow emphasising Dannatt's "general point". In other words, ignore what he said, this is what he meant and on this we are all agreed:

White House officials made a series of calls to clarify the comments. President George Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said: "We did call [Downing Street] and say, what did he say? We've received transcripts, especially of this morning's interviews.

"What he said is that the comment was taken out of context, and his general point was that when your work is done, you hand over authority to the Iraqis."

He added: "His general argument is, number one, there's no difference between him and the Blair government or between the Brits and the United States. Number two, this is not an injunction to leave, that somehow everything is getting worse."

So both Snow and Blair have sought to get around the tricky specifics of what Dannatt said and concentrate on the general thrust of his argument. Only by doing this are they able to pretend that they are actually in agreement.

But it's an uneasy truce and Blair knows it as do his supporters.

The Prime Minister's growing number of critics will be emboldened by the challenge to his authority by the general. Mr Blair's allies are worried where the next challenge will come from. "It's the end of an era," said one minister.

So Blair, like Bush, staggers on; clinging to the false hope that they will continue to be able to sell their presence in Iraq as a stabilising influence. In reality, both are merely wanting to avoid having to make any public acknowledgement of the scale of their blunder and they are both hoping to pass the situation on to their successors.

It's hardly a noble position for either man to hold. In fact, it's positively grubby.

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tag: Iraq, Iraq war, Tony, Blair, General Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British army, "Stay the course", troops, should, withdraw, War On Terror