dimanche sanglant<\/a> de Belfast, en janvier 1972. Plus r\u00e9cemment, Sir Mike dit vertement au g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Clark, commandant en chef de l’OTAN (SACEUR) et commandant des forces am\u00e9ricaines en Europe, qu’il refusait d’ex\u00e9cuter son ordre. Cela se passait le 11 juin 1999 et Clark avait ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 Jackson d’investir l’a\u00e9roport de Pristina d\u00e9j\u00e0 investi par les Russes (dans le cadre de la prise en main du Kosovo apr\u00e8s la guerre du m\u00eame nom). Jackson expliqua \u00e0 Clark qu’il n’avait pas l’intention de commencer la Troisi\u00e8me Guerre mondiale, point final. Clark se le tint pour dit et Blair, puis Clinton, approuv\u00e8rent tacitement l’insubordination de Jackson.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tJackson, devenu Sir Mike, termina sa carri\u00e8re au poste supr\u00eame de chef d’\u00e9tat-major des arm\u00e9es. Sous son commandement, les forces arm\u00e9es britanniques partirent en guerre en Afghanistan et en Irak. Il fut \u00e9gal \u00e0 sa r\u00e9putation; grande gueule d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale mais plut\u00f4t effac\u00e9 (m\u00e9diatiquement parlant) \u00e0 ce poste de hautes fonctions aux dimensions politiques \u00e9videntes, parce que ce g\u00e9n\u00e9ral dur-\u00e0-cuire a toujours refus\u00e9 de se distinguer d’une fa\u00e7on qui pourrait \u00eatre interpr\u00e9t\u00e9e comme politique. Il eut beaucoup de rapports avec ses amis am\u00e9ricains. On ne dit pas qu’ils furent privil\u00e9gi\u00e9s et l’on h\u00e9site apr\u00e8s coup sur l’emploi du terme amis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tEntr\u00e9 en retraite depuis l’automne 2005, Sir Mike prend la plume et nous donne Soldier<\/em>, ses m\u00e9moires. Et la bombe explose. Le Daily Telegraph<\/em>, qui publie les bonnes feuilles de Soldier<\/em>, qualifie les \u00e9crits de Sir Mike de \u00ab the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.<\/em> [] His outspoken remarks are likely to increase tensions between the British and US military over policy in Iraq.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tSir Mike, grande gueule, n’avait donc pas la plume dans sa poche. (Au reste, tout ce qu’il nous dit confirme point par point les constantes critiques, depuis 2002, des dissidents et autres opposants anti-war<\/em>. Il y a peut-\u00eatre une morale \u00e0 tirer de tout cela.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00abGeneral Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was intellectually bankrupt, describing his claim that US forces don’t do nation-building as nonsensical.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00bbIn the book, Sir Mike says he believes the entire US approach to tackling global terrorism is inadequate because it relies too heavily on military power at the expense of nation-building and diplomacy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00bbSir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam’s overthrow was down to the Pentagon’s refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military’s surge the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbSir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush’s decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAll the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste, he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbOnce you had decapitated Saddam Hussein’s regime, a model democratic society would inevitably emerge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbHe and other senior British officers were opposed to the Pentagon’s decision to disband the Iraqi army after Saddam’s overthrow, a decision he says was very short-sighted We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbSir Mike also reveals that he and other senior officers had doubts about the weapons of mass destruction dossier presented by the Blair government in late 2002.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbIts release caused a stir in military circles, reveals Sir Mike, particularly the suggestion that the UK could face a threat of attack at 45 minutes’ notice. We all knew that it was impossible for Iraq to threaten the UK mainland. Saddam’s Scud missiles could barely have reached our bases on Cyprus, and certainly no more distant target.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 1er septembre 2007 \u00e0 16H31<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Le g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Sir Michael Jackson, ou Sir Mike, n’est pas un tendre. Il le montra lors des campagnes britanniques en Irlande, notamment lors du dimanche sanglant de Belfast, en janvier 1972. Plus r\u00e9cemment, Sir Mike dit vertement au g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Clark, commandant en chef de l’OTAN (SACEUR) et commandant des forces am\u00e9ricaines en Europe, qu’il refusait… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[857,3169,3085,3812,6997,6998],"class_list":["post-69178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-irak","tag-jackson","tag-kosovo","tag-mike","tag-pristina","tag-soldier"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}