A blistering assessment of British policy in Iraq from the country's top soldier left Tony Blair reeling today.
General Sir Richard Dannatt said troops should come home within two years - flatly contradicting the Prime Minister's policy that the military will stay "as long as it takes".
Downing Street was aghast at the general's remarks, though in public it offered "full support".
His views have sent shockwaves through Government.
They are a total repudiation of the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly insisted that British presence in Iraq is morally right and has had no effect on our domestic security.
Sir Richard, who took up his post earlier this year, warned that "our presence in Iraq exacerbates" the "difficulties we are facing around the world."
He lambasts Tony Blair's desire to forge a "liberal democracy" in Iraq as a "naive" failure and he warns that "whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance."
Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said: "When I was in Iraq, soldiers told me the same thing."
"They said the reaction had gone from welcome, to consent to mere tolerance and they said that this meant we didn't have an indefinite licence to be there."
"To have one of our senior military figures speaking out on behalf of those under his commenad is a refreshing change."
The final, and best, line is pure Britspeak:
The party's defence spokesman Nick Harvey added: "This drives a coach and horses through the government's foreign policy."
We would probably flatten it with an SUV if our top general had the balls of that British one. He could still yell 'giddyap!'.
C'mon, General Pace, act like a goddam Marine for once. The Chesty Puller kind, not the Ollie North kind. Earn back some respect by telling Bush and Rumsfeld the truth. In public. Same goes to the top Doggie brass.
Update:
BBC News
Tony Blair has said he agrees with "every word" the new head of the British Army said on the Iraq war.
Speaking in St Andrews at the end of talks on Northern Ireland, the prime minister said the reason the government had been able to so far give up two provinces to Iraqi control was "precisely because the job has been done there."
He refused to be drawn on whether he agreed with quotes from Sir Richard published in the Daily Mail, saying only that later TV and radio interviews given by the general were more in context.
On the transcripts of those interviews Mr Blair said: "I agree with every word of it."
A spokesman for the Iraqi president said the departure of multi-national troops now "would be a disaster".
Yeah, for the puppet president.
Mr Blair said he "suspected" Sir Richard had given a long interview with the Daily Mail, and that some of his comments had been taken out of context.
Cover yer bum, Fifi.
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