Afghanistan: Blair blames the world

db: Blair complains that other governments don't share his wide-eyed enthusiasm for wars of choice [and U.S. strategy] - whilst what he should be doing is ensuring that the mistakes he, John Reid, Des Browne and the MoD have made are rectified as a matter of urgency. "We have to be victorious" says the government spokesman - meanwhile there aren't even sufficient helicopters to transport the wounded - and troops patrol in the notoriously useless SNATCH Land Rover. Anyone who has followed this story knows that both the mission and its strategy have been incoherently presented since day one - remember John Reid stating in the House of Commons that it was his hope that British troops might return from their 'peacekeeping' having not fired a single bullet?

Times Online: Britain's top generals appealed for the deployment of more planes and helicopters to Afghanistan yesterday, amid deepening alarm over the predicament of British troops there.

Sources close to Tony Blair said that he now considered the situation in Afghanistan to be "very dangerous", and believed that the West had failed to grasp just how high the stakes are. The Prime Minister is urging governments to send more troops and equipment to support the British-led Nato mission and to restore the authority of the Afghan Government in the south.

A senior government official said: "He wants governments to wake up to why this battle is important to our enemies. Al-Qaeda have chosen Iraq and Afghanistan as their two battlegrounds. We have got to be victorious there."

The 3,300 British troops and more than 5,000 other Nato troops were supposed to be conducting a peacekeeping and reconstruction mission in the four provinces of southern Afghanistan for which they will take responsibility from the US military on July 31. Instead, they find themselves in a combat zone, fighting almost daily battles with a resurgent Taleban. Eight foreign soldiers, including three Britons, were killed in the southern provinces last month, along with hundreds of Afghan security forces and civilians. Link