Gen. Richard Dannatt, the head of the British army, said Wednesday that Iraq duty would be too risky for the 22-year-old soldier prince, the younger son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and third in line to the British throne. Dannatt said he reached his decision after a visit to Iraq last week and learning of specific threats being made by insurgents against Harry and the soldiers in his unit. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...5/16/AR2007051600830.html?hpid=sec-artsliving No future in the Army now for Prince Harry http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6639469,00.html There was anger also at the way the matter had been handled by the Ministry of Defence, with MPs complaining that the insurgents had been handed a propaganda victory So after all the hype and publicity he will not now be going to Iraq Comments :-
Makes sense if you think about it. Any insurgents would focus their attacks to get a scalp such as Prince Harry. The General did not sit behind a desk but made the decision on what he saw and researched. One can imagine those in British uniform with red hair being a little relieved here as well Nothing to reflect on Prince Harry here. He was all set to go with his unit and now they must follow the chain of order.
Fair comment but the announcement now does nothing for the morale of the troops, if this action is taken now while all the other soldiers are in Iraq A monumental 'cock up' he should never have been considered in the first place with 'all the baggage he carries' A disaster on behalf of the UK Army The tabloids will love it
I think the major reason behind it was that they didn't want to increase the risk to the other members of Harry's platoon.
I've never understood why so many royals are involved in the army/navy/whatever. It's not much use being in the army if you can't go to war. According to wikipedia, Charley still holds the ranks of General (British Army), Admiral (Royal Navy) and Air Chief Marshal (Royal Air Force). They'd make an formidable father/son tag team.
British Royals always have been through the armed forces, going back to over 1000 years ago when to become monarch you HAD to lead an army and take the throne or hold on to it with force. Nowadays it serves two purposes 1 - to a degree it provides some protection for them while they are swallowed up by the machine during their "growing up and maturing" years; they can be posted to out of the way places and dont make arses of themselves getting drunk in London every night. At least this was the case until the press decided that a rifle range and training ground was EXACTLY the place where 30 cameramen and reporters would help to enhance the reality of a soldiers training 2 -the symbolic nature of being one of us; by being a squaddy/midhsipman etc then people stop seeing the royals so much as a distant set of people and relate to them as one of us. This promotes national pride, and every time a royal joins the forces recruitment immediately gets a spike with the general public of the same age group suddenly seeing a career in the forces as an option. Of course all of this is crap if the prince gets his own press team together and makes it very publically known that he actually does have balls of brass and wants to mix it with the men he has trained with. In the end if you sign up to join the forces, you are signing up to go to places where your life will be in danger. Harry is at fault from the point of view that he maybe hasn't recognised the risk he would place his colleagues under merely by his presence, but the main fault HAS to lie with the top brass in the army who accepted his application. When he applied it was very clear that we would still be in Iraq, still be in Afghanistan, etc, etc An absolute PR disaster, but how much more of a disaster would it have been if the insurgents had killed him along with the rest of the poor sods who got sent to protect (sorry, serve alongside) him.....
Seeing Harry in his little uniform promotes national pride? I'm surprised that the royal advisors allowed it. A quick look around the world to see how many wars were going on might have been a good idea. They should have put Harry in a boy band instead.
I say they send him under an alias. He gets killed? Rallying cry for the British - and it'll either make them recoil from every last territory, or piss them off into a Second World War-like fury.
He is a closet Nazi who should have gone to the war. There is no need need for someone in the army who will not go to battle when the call for him to do so is paramount.
If you read a little history about him going to Iraq, you would know that he did not have any objections to going there. In fact he was adamant to be with his unit and in the forefront not doing some cosy desk work. I do advise reading up a bit before commenting - it does not reflect well on you as I have seen some good comments from you in the past on other threads.