Tony Blair and Gordon Brown let UK troops down, ex-army chief says

Islam Times: The former head of the army today accused Tony Blair and Gordon Brown of letting down British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and described the case for the Iraq war as "most uncompelling".

General Sir Richard Dannatt called Brown "malign" for failing to fund the armed forces adequately, and said Blair lacked the "moral courage" to make his then chancellor deliver the money that was needed, The Gardian reported.

The accusations were made in a book, Leading From the Front, which is being serialised in the Sunday Telegraph.

Dannatt was unusually outspoken about the equipment and manpower needs of the army during his time as the chief of general staff from 2006 until 2009, and some commentators believe he was passed over for the job of head of the armed forces as a result.

Shortly after retiring from the military last year, it was announced that he would become a defence adviser to David Cameron, but he decided not to take up the post after the Conservative leader became prime minister in May.

In his book, Dannatt wrote that the evidence for Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction – the official justification for Britain's involvement in the 2003 invasion – was "most uncompelling" and the planning for the aftermath of war had been an "abject failure".

While the 1998 strategic defence review (SDR) provided a "good framework" for defence policy in the Labour years, it was "fatally flawed" because it was underfunded by Brown's Treasury and could not cope with the strains of deploying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time.

"History will pass judgment on these foreign adventures in due course, but in my view Gordon Brown's malign intervention, when chancellor, on the SDR by refusing to fund what his own government had agreed, fatally flawed the entire process from the outset," he wrote.

"The seeds were sown for some of the impossible operational pressures to come."

Blair "lacked the moral courage to impose his will on his own chancellor", Dannatt added.

He told the Sunday Telegraph: "I was the professional head of an organisation that was hurting, being asked to do an awful lot.

"I felt that the top end of the government did not understand or fully appreciate the pressures the army was under, and I tried really hard to get that understanding across.

"I felt it was pushing a rock up a steep hill pretty much all the way through. It was frustrating because, from the land forces' point of view, we always do our job, but we knew we couldn't do it as well because we hadn't got the resources we needed."

Dannatt said he felt that, from Labour's arrival in office in 1997, Blair was "prepared to use the armed forces on the world stage", but Brown, as chancellor, was "not particularly interested in defence".

He did not absolve Blair of responsibility for funding shortfalls, saying: "Every organisation has its tone set by its leadership.

"To me, it seems extraordinary that the prime minister, the number one guy, cannot crack the whip sufficiently to his very close friend, the chancellor, and say: 'We're doing this in the national interest, Gordon, you fund it.'"