British military at limit of capacity: Britain's top soldier

[tocqueville]

2 hours, 26 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's military is at the limit of its capacity and can barely cope with the demands placed on it, the head of Britain's army said in an interview.

General Richard Dannat, who took over from General Mike Jackson last week, told the The Guardian newspaper: "We are running hot, certainly running hot ... Can we cope? I pause. I say 'just.'"

He said the armed forces would be in Afghanistan for "the long term", but when asked about whether other NATO countries should contribute more troops, Dannat said Britain was doing "more than its share of what is required in Afghanistan".

Asked by The Guardian about the hopes of some senior British soldiers that the number of British forces in Iraq could be halved by the middle of 2007, Dannat stressed that those possibilities had been described as a "hope" and pointed out that previous hopes about Iraq had not been fulfilled.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060903/wl_uk_afp/britainmilitarydefence

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Poodle Blair has a couple of young pups

that are the right age for army service, if I am not mistaken. If Her Majesty's forces are so short handed, you'd think the junior Blairs would be anxious to do their bit for dear old dad, The Queen and Empire and gladly go off to breath in some of that depleted uranium laced, Afghan dust while slogging up and down the mountain slopes with their fellow Tommies on the hunt for evil-doers. It would make a heck of a photo op if Tony were to be photographed waving a teary good bye at an RAF base while his offspring suited up in army kit hopped on a RAF Herc departing for Afghanistan. Of course, we know their is no danger of it ever coming to pass.