By IRNA,
London : Competing priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan meant the British army was caught in a “perfect storm” in 2006 and was close to “seizing up”, former chief of the general staff Gen Sir Richard Dannatt revealed Wednesday.
Giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, Dannatt likened the army in 2006 as a car “running hot” saying that while the security situation in Iraq was deteriorating, it was also important to commit more troops to Afghanistan.
“You can run hot when you are in balance and there is enough oil sloshing around the engine to keep it going. When the oil is thin, or not in sufficient quantity, the engine runs the risk of seizing up,” he said.
“I think we were getting quite close to a seizing-up moment in 2006,” the former army chief told the inquiry, which is seeking to identity lessons to be learned from the controversial Iraq war.
He blamed the lack of post-conflict planning in Iraq for making “a difficult situation worse”. The situation, he said, deteriorated when former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld mounted a “hostile takeover” of the Pentagon under Colin Powell.