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British Army Boss Of Bosses, General Sir Mike Jackson, Attacks US ...
General Sir Michael (Mike) Jackson has never been known as a man who takes any prisoners. He was until recently the numero uno - bar none - head honcho of the British Army as well as all Britain's Military Services. In other words, brass-wise, they don't come any bigger. Make no mistake, this man is heavyweight.Here are a few other things General Jackson is and was.
General Sir Michael "Mike" Jackson, GCB, CBE, DSO, (born 21 March 1944) is a British army officer, formerly Chief of the General Staff.
He was formerly commander of KFor in Kosovo as well as UNPROFOR (see Timeline of UN peacekeeping missions) commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He's also the man who once (basically), told US General Wesley Clark to go f*ck himself.
Check out General Jackson for yourself, at this link.
Anyways - to get back on tack, and down to the business of the day.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson attacks US over Iraq
By Con Coughlin and Neil Tweedie
Daily Telegraph - 11:56am BST - 01/09/2007
General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.
The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".
Sir Mike's comments - made in his forthcoming autobiography Soldier, serialised exclusively in The Daily Telegraph - represent the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.Ouch! Eh?
His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003.
Sir Mike, who took command of the British Army one month before US-led forces invaded Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq".
Read on.
Sir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam's overthrow was down to the Pentagon's refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military's "surge" the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure.And there's much more where that came from.
Sir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush's decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department.
"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters "it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army.
Read the rest of today's Telegraph's report.
Labels: British Army, Donald Rumsfeld, General Sir Michael Rose, Iraq war
posted by Richard at Saturday, September 01, 2007
7 Comments:
I'd almost forgotten that rat, Rumsfeld. Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks to General Sir Mike too for telling it how it is.
He sounds like 'a soldier's soldier' to me.
Give him another medal, I say.
Well, you have to admire him. He is in my opinion the most credible military officer there is. Hes told the US where to put it more than once, and hes bitten back against the petty criticisms of an adminastration that really is on it's way out. Hes the military voice of the UK, and its time the morons in the white house started to listen.
Im glad he has struck back also because we really need to be rid of the current US adminastration. Soon enough the US will be rid of them too and we cant be left pandering to them while they stagger around on their last legs.
We're moving into a new era, and im glad General Sir Mike has covered our rear from these obselete US accusations. Well done to him!
all what you guys said
don't only give him another medal ...... give him another title ..... make him a lord
he's worth a hundred politicians ... at least
Letter Daily Telegraph Dec 8th 2006
Sir - I am a Major in the Army who has served in Bosnia and more recently as a military assistant to the General Officer Commanding in Basra. General Sir Mike Jackson's comments in the Dimbleby lecture and his interview on Today left me seething (report, December 7).
If Sir Mike felt so strongly about the topics of over-stretch, equipment, accommodation and pay, why did he not do something about it when he was in a position to do so? If he thought that Afghanistan was going to be bloodier than it has turned out to be, why did he not restructure the fighting force at the time?
Why did he not just say "No" when faced with more deployments and the subsequent overstretch? His comments are an insult to those who have lost their lives in Afghanistan, a conflict he could have affected, but did not have the moral courage to do so.
A poor performance for the top general. If he was in the commercial world, he would not have been entertained for so long. I, like many of my fellow officers and soldiers, have decided to vote with my feet and have sadly resigned my commission after 10 years' service as I cannot see a turning point for the Army. Name and address supplied
Ex Major General Tim Cross, General Janus Jackson , Major General Patrick Cordingley, ( who led the Desert Rats in the 1991 Gulf War the Mirror reminds us) , Malcolm Rifkind, Menzies Campbell, William Hague, foreign affairs spokesman for the Conservatives .... it is not sufficient to make the argument - it is necessary to win it.
The British politcial and military leadership signed off, indeed Parliament approved the illegal invasion which millions marched against. They signed up willingly, as brothers in arms with Dubya's gang, they accepted and often promulgated lies. They deceived the public with dossiers - they cannot cast off their responsibilities, conceal their cowardice by now calling the US policies , "intellectually bankrupt" or looking for a handy scapegoat.
This Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy will not wash. The whole illegal military endeavour, the invasion , designed to outflank diplomacy - merely a continuation of a rape that started with sanctions and no-fly zones was a conspiracy.
It was a conspiracy that the military leaders (however unwilling) failed to modify, it was a compact with a flawed and dishonest leadership - across all parties. Mealy mouthed apologies and casuistic explanations re-directing the blame cannot and must not be allowed.
Patrick Mercer MP Con. Newark ex ol. Sherwoof Foresters is reported ..
He said:
"What he says is right. The lack of post conflict planning is stunning. However, the reason that we haven't been able to prosecute either the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns as effectively as we might is that we haven't concentrated our forces. We have a war on two fronts while cutting combat units as a peace dividend for pulling out of Northern Ireland. You can't get away from it: this happened on his watch."
"Before he resigned, General Jackson was instrumental in recommending a new structure for the Army, which led to reductions in the numbers of frontline troops."
His fan club eviden tly has limits
How do we know he had any better luck with Blair than he did with Rumsfeld?
Blair thought he knew it all too.
Great isn't it? When the going got too hot he just threw his hand in and pissed off, leaving others to sort the whole thing out - and some of them [in uniform] will die doing it.
I don't know enough about these things to say anything for certain but wasn'r Jackson the equivalent of the senior manager, implementing as best he could the instructions of the 'board of directors'? Of which Blair was the chairman.
He does not seem to touch on the matter that the whole invasion was, well, kind of illegal.
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