- LONDON (Reuters) -- Fear
that ruthless United States tactics could lead to disaster in Iraq has
caused Washington's most loyal ally Britain to waver in its support as
never before.
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- In public, Prime Minister Tony Blair remains as staunch
a supporter as ever, defending the performance of US troops on the ground
at the flashpoints of Fallujah and Najaf.
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- But the country's military and diplomatic establishment,
which overcame reservations last year to back the decision to go to war,
has begun openly distancing itself from harsh US military tactics it increasingly
fears could backfire.
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- More than a month after it became clear that Spanish
soldiers were withdrawing from Iraq, Britain has yet to commit to sending
more troops to take the Spaniards' place.
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- "The core of the establishment around Tony Blair
wants to stand with (US President) George Bush, having committed themselves.
But they are having real problems," said Charles Heyman, editor of
Jane's World Armies.
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- Washington has not hidden the fact that it wants British
troops to patrol the Shi'a flashpoint of Najaf, which the Spaniards evacuated.
But Britain has been more opaque than usual, saying only that it is "in
talks with its coalition partners".
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- Asked about it again on Thursday, Blair's spokesperson
said: "The only thing I am going to say is that the matter is kept
under constant review".
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- Said Heyman: "If it was just a simple matter of
supporting your ally, those 2 000 troops would have been on the planes
by now."
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- Britain's military prides itself on its peacekeeping
and counter-insurgency skills, learned over years of colonial conflicts.
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- "You have to lose an empire to understand how to
do peacekeeping," said British defence analyst Paul Beaver. "I
think there's despair at the way the Americans go about peacekeeping. The
Americans are not good at it."
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- So far, disquiet among serving British commanders has
mostly been in the form of oblique hints that they would prefer to see
American troops act with more restraint.
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- The chief of the general staff, Sir Mike Jackson, said
last week it was a "fact of life" that "the British approach
to post-conflict (situations) is doctrinally different to the US"
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- "We must be able to fight with the Americans but
that does not mean we must fight as the Americans," he said.
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- But the hints are becoming more obvious.
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- Worries among the diplomatic corps burst into the open
this week when 52 former senior British diplomats sent a letter to a news
agency saying Blair should either persuade Bush to change course or abandon
a policy "doomed to failure".
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- "Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory
language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Fallujah, all these have
built up rather than isolated the opposition," they wrote.
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- The left-leaning Guardian newspaper quoted an anonymous
government source on Thursday as saying: "The senior British military
are strongly opposed to taking over the Spanish areas of command, or sending
further troops."
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- Britain is still clearly hoping to influence US tactics.
It has dispatched Major General John McColl - who set up a highly successful
international peace force in Afghanistan in 2001 - to be the deputy to
the US commander in Baghdad.
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- But his clout is likely to be limited unless Britain
commits more troops on the ground.
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- If Britain decides to replace the Spaniards, it would
amount to a major increase in its responsibilities. Britain would probably
take command of the entire south-central area, now patrolled by a 15-nation
Polish-led division of which the Spanish were one part.
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- But if Britain refuses to send more troops, its role
will be more marginal than ever, as US forces expand their reach into the
Shi'a south to fill the vacuum.
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- With the decision still on hold, British commanders can
be expected to nudge their American counterparts in private, trying to
avoid taking their differences into the open.
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- "One of the things Americans always get wrong with
us is they think we say things directly, like they do," said Heyman.
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- "You wont find a British military officer saying
to the Americans: 'this is not how you do it, this is how you do it'. But
you will find a British officer saying: 'I am worried about the eventual
outcome of this campaign.'"
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