Britain 'risking defeat in Afghanistan'

Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, the former head of Britain's armed forces, has broken ranks to launch an attack on the current military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, warning that British forces risk defeat in Afghanistan. In one of the strongest interventions in the conduct of the "war on terror," Inge also charged a lack of any "clear strategy" guiding British operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. His comments on Oct. 17 came as President George W. Bush met his military and political officials to consider fresh tactics over Iraq, amid a mood of crisis in Washington over the violence. The remarks by the former chief of the defense staff, who also served on a British government commission exploring intelligence failures in Iraq, follow those by the present head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, who warned that the presence of British troops in Iraq had "exacerbated" security problems in the country. "I don't believe we have a clear strategy in either Afghanistan or Iraq. I sense we've lost the ability to think strategically. Deep down inside me, I worry that the British army could risk operational failure if we're not careful in Afghanistan. We need to recognize the test that I think they could face there," he told the debate held by Open Europe, an independent think tank campaigning for EU reform. Inge added that Whitehall had surrendered its ability to think strategically and that despite the immense pressures on the army, defense received neither the research nor funding it required. "I sense that Whitehall has lost the knack of putting together inter-departmental thinking about strategy. It talks about how we're going to do in Afghanistan, it doesn't really talk about strategy." The Iraq issue has been brought to a head by the sense of crisis enveloping Iraq, where attacks have increased by 22 percent, deaths are reaching record levels, and British troops in the south of the country have been confronted by the specter of Shia gunmen launching large-scale attacks. Inge's comments come amid growing pressure in Washington from Republican Party loyalists, fearful of a meltdown in mid-term elections in Congress on Nov. 7, for a change in direction for US policy on Iraq. Although Bush has admitted that tactics on the ground could change in response to the latest violence, he insisted in his weekly radio address on Oct. 21 that there would be no change in the overall strategy.