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Fmr. UK army chief urges boots on the ground against ISIL

UK

A former British army commander has called for troop deployment in Syria and Iraq against the ISIL terrorist group.

Richard Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff, said he felt airstrikes had failed to stop the advance of the terror group and urged the UK parliament to debate deploying up to 5,000 infantry soldiers.

However, Dannatt’s call was immediately dismissed by Sajid Javid, the UK business secretary, who said the crisis in Syria and Iraq was not a war on the ground for British troops, the Guardian reported.

Dannatt said: “In light of this terrifying scenario, how much longer can Britain and the US continue to show such a lack of commitment to defeating Isis (ISIL) mililtarily? Their default option of airstrikes and limited assistance to indigenous forces has failed thus far.

“We have now reached a point when we must think the previously unthinkable and consider that British troops, acting as part of an international coalition, may be required to mount a ground campaign in Iraq and Syria.

“I am no gung-ho general who says ‘just send the boys in and don’t worry about the body bags’, far from it, but faced with such a lethal and uncompromising enemy as Isis – and with the lack of political and diplomatic solutions at our disposal – we can no longer rule out ‘boots on the ground’.”

Now international lawyer Barry Grossman believes, “If the UK was genuine about helping to find a solution to the problem, the British would simply stay out of the matter and certainly stay out of the region, focusing instead on the root causes of the ISIL phenomena in what they used to like to call  the British Isles.”

“The only reason the British want in on the ground in Iraq, in Syria is to advance their own commercial interests as washed up establishment dreamers fantasize about reliving the glory days of the British Empire. Clearly that is never going to happen.”

“As for the ISIL problem, the indisputable reality is that while it demands a military response, there is little scope for an entirely military solution and certainly no scope for a military response imposed by states from outside the immediate region,” Grossman told Press TV in a Sunday interview.

The UK defense secretary, Michael Fallon, announced in March two RAF Sentinel surveillance aircraft had been deployed to the region to operate alongside Tornado strike jets and Reaper drones that have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq, the British paper said.

MA/GHN


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