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Brown v Dannatt: it’s war
The Mole: Brown waffles over helicopters as departing Army chief fights for troops’ rights, reports our Westminster insider
Gordon Brown has been put on notice that his ongoing row with the head of the British army over troop numbers and equipment in Afghanistan is going to batter him right through the long summer break.
The Commons rises next Tuesday and will not return until early October. But if Brown thought that might lift the pressure, then Sir Richard Dannatt is out to disappoint him. In an interview with the BBC, he has warned the Prime Minister he is preparing a "shopping list" of equipment needed by troops in Afghanistan.
Sir Richard, who stands down as head of the army next month, has already embarrassed Brown by suggesting there is a shortage of kit in Afghanistan and that more troops are needed for the operation against the Taliban. He dramatically highlighted the point about a lack of helicopters by insisting earlier this week that the only way he could tour the region was by asking the US to ferry him around in one of their numerous Black Hawks.
Brown's discomfort was clear when he made his twice-yearly appearance before the powerful liaison committee of MPs yesterday and was bluntly accused of refusing to tell them the truth over the army's demands for troop numbers.
Tory committee member James Arbuthnot demanded to know if the military had requested 2,000 extra troops, as widely reported, but had the plea rejected by Brown.
Brown waffled about commanders on the ground having the numbers they needed, which infuriated Arbuthnot who accused him of deliberately refusing to answer the committee's questions.
At the same time, the Commons defence committee reported that a lack of helicopters was undermining the operation in Afghanistan, leading to further questions about lack of proper kit. The Prime Minister again refused to give full detail, resorting again to the assertion that the commanders on the ground were not complaining they did not have the resources they needed.
This is all highly dangerous territory for Brown. It is pretty clear there is a major split between him and the outgoing army chief who is determined to use his last days in post to do whatever he can to win the support for his troops he believes they deserve. That may win him huge admiration and respect with the military and troops on the ground, but it is doing nothing for his relationship with the Labour government.
The Tories have seized on his remarks, and the fact that he has chosen to make them at this time, to suggest Brown is putting cost before the lives of British troops.
With the current operation against the Taliban set to run through to the elections in Afghanistan late next month, and with the death toll bound to rise further, this is not a row that is about to die down just because the Commons is no longer sitting.
Even if Brown can hold his line through the summer, he is then likely to face another crunch point when those elections are over and he will be expected to reduce troop numbers to pre-operation levels as promised. If that proves impossible, he will not only face criticism for failing to back the troops properly, but demands for a re-think of the entire policy towards Afghanistan. ·
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It has long been time that Gordon Brown was held to account. His usual habit of going missing when difficult decisions need to be made, or difficult questions asked, is no longer tenable when the lives of British military are at stake.
Members of the armed forces are dying on a mission in Afghanistan where they were dispatched on the orders of a Labour Government that included Gordon Brown. As Chancellor for more than a decade he will be well aware that military spending has been reduced while operations in Iraq and Afghanistan put additional strain on the military.
If he does not want to fund the operation properly, he should withdraw the troops immediately. How ironic that the man who wrote a book entitled "Courage" cannot show any himself.
Dannatt is a war-mongering maniac who should have been stopped years ago. He's exploited the Iraq and Afghan wars to secure more money thrown into a black hole called "the Army". Meantime atrocities committed by British troops on his watch have sky-rocketed. I hope he's tried and sentenced to be shot by a firing-squad - as a military man he is subject to the rules of Military Tribunal.
Good. Brown's antipathy towards the military which, like so much else, frustrated Blair's policies (although the latter was happy to commit our troops to war despite the lack of materiel) is going to creep up behind him and bite him in the arse. The British people have an instinctive appreciation of their soldiers fighting abroad, as they have been doing for several hundred years, whilst Brown does not. We do not need lessons in 'Britishness' or 'Courage' from this unreconstructed socialist. The death of the CO of the Welsh Guards was a seminal moment. Any CO is normally conveyed by helicopter - even on a training exercise on Salisbury Plain - and this tragic loss (from a regiment which also suffered horrific casualties in the Falklands) exemplifies the way Brown has starved the military, particularly the Army, of the oxygen it needs in order to function effectively. The British will put up with being beaten at Football or Cricket - or even Rugby - but will not accept defeat at the hands of an incompetent PM on the field of battle. As Irwin Seltzer wrote in the Telegraph this week: "Churchill broke the country in order to save it, Brown is breaking the country in order to save public spending." I rest my case. My own view is that he will hang on until the last possible moment and then call an election in which he will be spectacularly beaten. Spin your way out of that, Mr Brown. You are about as patriotic towards this country as Vladimir Putin or Nicholas Sarkozy - not to mention Osama bin Laden. You ought to be tried for Treason. (No wonder you and Bliar wanted to remove the capital punishment for that offence.) Whatever electoral advantage Mrs Thatcher gained from the Falklands War, Brown is only going to reap electoral poison from Afghanistan - he has starved the military ever since 1997 and is soon to receive his rewards for that.