Tim Garden: Blair missed his chance on Iraq

There is a sense of desperation among our armed forces. The tasks never end, and the troops and kit are looking pretty frayed at the edges. Last week Tony Blair tinkered with the deployment in Iraq by announcing the withdrawal of some 1,600 troops soon. Yet he said nothing in the Commons, or in his interview on the Today programme the next morning, about the dispatch of another 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers to Afghanistan. That news, as usual, was leaked first to the media.

The Prime Minister seems to have boundless confidence in the military's ability to deliver his interventionist aims. Yet the British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF are smaller than at any time in the past 70 years. They are conducting operations in two very hostile theatres of war, Iraq and Afghanistan. They feel undervalued by the Government, unappreciated by the public.

Tony Blair has made no secret of his willingness to use military force. He was ready with air strikes against Iraq in 1998. He wanted to commit troops on the ground in addition to the air campaign in the Kosovo conflict of 1999. He intervened in Sierra Leone separately from the UN.

Since 9/11, the pace of British military action has increased yet further. We supported the US in its attack on Afghanistan, and then increased our presence in the subsequent five years of campaigns there.

The defining moment of the Blair decade was commitment of some 40,000 British forces to the 2003 intervention in Iraq. Since then force levels have reduced, but operations have intensified in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Other smaller commitments continue worldwide.

After the Cold War, the measurable threat which justified a particular scale of armed forces ended. Defence forces, in the new peaceful Europe, were still needed for peacekeeping, humanitarian relief and UN-endorsed operations. They might have to fight, as in the 1991 Gulf War, but the commitment was up to the government of the day: we had entered an era of "wars of choice".

Planners in the Ministry of Defence agreed about the types of commitments they should prepare for. At the upper end was another Gulf war; the lower end might be a number of small, benign peacekeeping tasks. The troops, their specialisations and their equipment all flow from these defence planning assumptions. Yet since Kosovo in 1999, the tempo of operations has been much greater. The armed forces are being used continuously beyond the planned levels.

While the military can rise to the challenge for an emergency, continuous overtasking has a number of serious consequences. Equipment wears out earlier than expected, and replacements may not be readily available. Managing the people also becomes more difficult - dangerous operations in distant parts come round more frequently, less time is spent at home, and families feel the strain. Some specialists, such as engineers, signallers or helicopter pilots, may be needed for every operation, but they have skills that are easily marketed in civilian life. Some 88 specialist areas were reported to be suffering shortages last year.

Rightly, current operations and the safety of deployed troops take precedence over everything else. Yet this progressively causes problems for the long-term equipment plan. The 10-year programme for new capabilities is currently estimated to be £15bn short. Grand plans for new vessels, aircraft and vehicles, and the integration of networked systems, are under threat.

In his maiden speech in the Lords last week, the former Chief of Defence Staff, Lord Walker, focused on the covenant that must exist between the Government and the armed forces. The military give up rights that ordinary citizens take for granted, and have unlimited liability to give their lives for others. In return a government must treat them fairly, equip them properly, and give them the best care if injured. He also made clear that it was the duty of public and politicians to argue for sufficient funding for the tasks that are put on our armed forces.

But more money cannot solve the current problems quickly. The defence budget has seen a small, but insufficient, real rise over the past decade. New equipment takes years to arrive: it takes years to train recruits. Looking at defence policy from the bottom of the pyramid, as a soldier in Iraq inevitably does, promises of new vehicles and better accommodation in 10 years' time seem little recompense. Extra pay can help to some extent - and the troops will be looking carefully at their pay rise to be announced over the next few days - but British forces are now in a state where the only way quickly to relieve the pressure is a reduction in commitments. This is proving problematic for a prime minister who likes to intervene.

The military have been arguing for a significant drawdown in Iraq. The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, signalled this at the end of last year, when he expressed concern that our troops were becoming part of the problem. Yet the drawdown announced this week was smaller than had been hoped for, and even this limited relief will be negated by the extra increase in Afghanistan. As long as both theatres of war have to be serviced, specialist support will be needed in two places. There will be too few helicopters, and continuing problems sending soldiers on leave because of lack of air transport.

Britain can no longer sustain two challenging operations at the same time. Afghanistan is proving tougher than predicted, and there is no available extra help from allies. But if we withdrew, we would be allowing the resurgence of the Taliban, which gave al-Qa'ida a base for 9/11 and would certainly seek to hurt us again. In Iraq, on the other hand, we are only 5 per cent of the multinational forces, and have had no influence on strategy.

Mr Blair has missed an opportunity. We should have gone for a full withdrawal, and let the much larger US forces flow in to take our place. If we concentrate on Afghanistan, we might be able to sustain the effort for the long period that will be needed. If we continue to divide our forces, then we risk failing in both tasks, and doing long-term damage to our military capability. Everyone hopes Mr Blair's successor is less excited by playing soldiers.

Tim Garden, a former Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff, is Defence spokesman for the Liberal Democrats in the Lords

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