KEY POINTS:
LONDON - When Tony Blair rose in Parliament last week to announce that 1600 troops would soon be withdrawn from Iraq, he did not say that an almost equal number would be sent to Afghanistan at roughly the same time. That news only emerged 36 hours later.
Why did the Prime Minister keep silent? Because to have announced the two deployments simultaneously would have made it clear that all the problems the military has been complaining about, notably the "overstretch" caused by sending undermanned, inadequately equipped forces into two hostile environments at once, have not been solved.
What Blair managed to disguise was that his long-awaited announcement of the beginning of the retreat from Iraq was in fact a slowdown. Military chiefs were desperate to pull 3000 troops out of Iraq by the English summer; instead they got only half that number. The rest may leave by the end of the year - if conditions allow. But as an officer with experience there said: "The security situation on the ground in Basra is very volatile. Nobody knows what will happen day to day."
With talk in military circles of further much-needed reinforcements likely to be sent to Afghanistan in coming months, not least because other Nato members are refusing to provide them, the strain on resources can only increase. That will expose the deficiencies in equipment even more starkly.
One of the most outspoken critics of the Ministry of Defence's failings has been Bishop Thomas Burns, the senior Catholic military chaplain. During the weekend he returned to the attack, saying the the military's activities "are often jeopardised by poor equipment, outmoded vehicles and inadequate apparel. The Government has a moral duty to equip them for the task they give them. Anything less risks lives and is morally reprehensible."
Burns' reference to "outmoded vehicles" can be taken to refer particularly to the lightly armoured "snatch" Land-Rover, which is defenceless against the more sophisticated roadside bombs being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than a quarter of the soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion have been in "snatch" vehicles, but its replacement, the Bulldog, is only now beginning to arrive in any numbers in both theatres.
As the services compete for spending, generals are becoming increasingly vocal in demanding an expansion of ground forces. But they fear the Government's priorities lie elsewhere, as shown by the disclosure that Blair has been secretly talking to the US about siting the European element of the "Son of Star Wars" missile defence system in Britain.
All this contributes to frustration among many soldiers. Rather than resources being fitted to the mission, the mission has constantly been redefined to fit the resources.
This month, the Ministry of Defence set out conditions for withdrawal that include "a manageable level of threat from insurgents" and "effective local Government", as well as the ability of Iraqi forces to deal with the terror threat and coalition forces to back them up. As Michael Knights and Ed Williams, two Iraq experts, pointed out in a paper for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "even these goals are far from being achieved".
BRITAIN'S VISION FOR IRAQ
2003
"A stable, united and law-abiding state" that would pose no threat to its neighbours or to the world "providing effective representative Government to its own people".
Now
Blair's Iraq troop recall no help for stretched military
- INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
