Tag Archives: richard dannatt

General Sir Richard Dannatt’s verdict: more cash, more time please

By Mark Pack | Published 15th October 2010 - 10:25 am

General Sir Richard Dannatt’s memoir of his time in the British army manages somehow to be both fascinating and banal.

Fascinating because of the detail he provides to back-up his severe criticism of Ministry of Defence civil servants and politicians, Labour ones in particular but Gordon Brown above all, for failing to fund the army sufficiently for the jobs they demanded of it. Banal because, despite his long experience of counter-insurgency and peace-keeping operations starting with Northern Ireland in the 1970s, his repeated message through the book is one of ‘give the army more money, give the army more time’.

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Posted in Books | Also tagged | 8 Comments

Tory post ‘a misjudgement’ by Gen Sir Richard Dannatt

By The Voice | Published 11th December 2009 - 1:50 pm

From the BBC:

Ex-Army chief Gen Sir Richard Dannatt has been accused of a “terrifying misjudgement” in agreeing while still in service to be a Tory adviser.

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown told BBC Question Time the appointment had broken the convention that the military should be independent of politics…

Lord Ashdown said the UK had to face up to the fact that it would be engaged in Afghanistan for “decades”, while stressing that this did not mean troops would be based there indefinitely.

“It takes a lot of time to build peace after war,” he said.

Full story here, and video here:

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Daily View 2×2: 17 July 2009

By Stephen Tall | Published 17th July 2009 - 9:15 am

2 Big Stories

Troops need more, says Dannett

The BBC has the interview and the story:

The head of the UK Army has said better equipment is needed to protect troops from roadside bombs in Afghanistan. General Sir Richard Dannatt told the BBC troops “needed more” and added that he would be compiling a shopping list of what was required. … The general’s comments will be seen as careful “parting shots”. …

In return for their service, he says more money needs to be spent on equipment for British forces in Afghanistan. Earlier this week, the general – on his last trip

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment