Forces need five years post Iraq

Britain will not be ready an Iraq-scale operation for five years

UK armed forces are unlikely to be able mount a military operation on the scale of Iraq for another five years, Britain's top military officer said.

General Sir Michael Walker told MPs that if Tony Blair wanted to mount a similar scale of operation other commitments would have to be cut back.

The chief of defence staff said the military were still recuperating.

"We are unlikely to be able to get to large-scale much before the end of the decade, somewhere around 2008 or 09."

He told the Commons defence committee that military top brass had "already accepted that we cannot do another large scale [operation] now.

Five theatres

He was "absolutely" prepared to tell the prime minister or Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon if something had to give in terms of current world-wide commitments.

British personnel were currently operating in five theatres around the world with troops in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone as well as Iraq.

His comments are at odds with predecessor Admiral Sir Michael Boyce who said that a large scale operation could be staged by the end of 2005.

Last week the defence committee published a report on Iraq which said the armed forces were becoming a "one operation force" as far as large scale operations were concerned.

General Walker said the Army was further behind in the recuperation process than the Navy or RAF.

In the same session, the chief of Naval staff, Admiral Sir Alan West said he was finding it necessary to be "quite selective" about crewing ships.

He gave the example of vessels involved in anti-drugs operations in the West Indies which were sailing without fully operational anti-submarine or anti-aircraft defences.

"In an ideal world I would like to have them fully manned but we have these 'pinch points' like all the Services have," he said.

Chief of the general staff, General Sir Mike Jackson, said there was a shortage of medics and experts in "human intelligence" gathering in the Army.

"The acquisition of human intelligence is growing in importance and arguably we don't have enough people trained in that skill," he said.

And the chief of the air staff, Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the RAF also had shortages in "certain specialist areas".

Lord Boyce later told the Upper House about the pressures on the armed forces.

"The new defence policy mantra that numbers are not important is a very glib statement in the context of peacekeeping operations, unless the government intends to drive people harder, or make a dramatic reduction in a number of our commitments," he said.

"The resilience, goodwill and morale of our Armed Forces are in serious jeopardy."