British General Questions Blair's Iraq Policy

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has lost two foreign secretaries over his policies concerning Iraq and Iran. Five years ago, I had respect for Tony Blair, but I'm unable to understand why he's been drinking President Bush's Kool Aid since early 2002. It's seems he ought to know by now that he's dealing with an incompetent. Even the memos in his government, nearly a year before the war started, suggested there were going to be problems.

Here's the story by Michael Evans and Sam Coates of the British paper, The Times:

TONY BLAIR’S foreign policy was in tatters last night after the head of the Army said that the continued presence of British troops in Iraq was responsible for bloodshed at home and abroad.

The scathing comments by General Sir Richard Dannatt directly contradict the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly claimed that the invasion of Iraq played no role in galvanising Muslim extremism in Britain and bringing about the 7/7 bombings.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, last night ordered Sir Richard to report for a meeting at the ministry this morning where his future will be discussed.

Blair, despite credentials suggesting he's a moderate, seems to have the right wing Republican disease of hearing only what he wants to hear. Here's more from The Times:

In an interview Sir Richard said that the continuing presence in Iraq of 7,200 British troops was “exacerbating the security problems” and said they should come home soon.

He added: “We are in a Muslim country and Muslims’ views of foreigners in their country are quite clear. As a foreigner you can be welcomed by being invited in a country but we weren’t invited, certainly by those in Iraq at the time. The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in.”

(snip)

He made it clear that he thought that the planning for the post-combat phase was “poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning”. He added: “The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East. That was the hope, whether that was a sensible or naive hope, history will judge.”

Although other senior figures in the Army have privately expressed concern about strategy in Iraq and, in particular, the lack of proper planning after the invasion had taken place in March 2003, no one as senior as Sir Richard has made such a personal attack on the Government’s strategy.

One hears it over and over from generals, national security types, foreign policy experts and well-informed journalists: "...the lack of proper planning after the invasion." Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have to accept responsibility for the cavalier way in which they believed all they had to do was reach Baghdad and the rest would take care of itself. The lack of planning was a direct result of their flawed ideology; the idea that Iraq would be a cakewalk was a right wing fantasy no better than the movies cranked out by Hollywood. What's worse is Bush's inabillity to adapt to changing conditions. Keep in mind that Republicans can win wars. The senior Bush, surrounded by very able advisers, demonstrated that brilliantly. But when we allow right wing Republicans to run our foreign policy according to their unbending ideology, we do so at our peril.