Britain admits forces stretched, after new Afghan blow
13 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) - Britain's new army chief warned that the country's military was stretched to its very limits, as authorities reeled from a deadly weekend plane crash and a new attack by Taliban insurgents.
General Richard Dannat, who took over from General Mike Jackson last week, told the daily Guardian that the army can barely cope with the demands placed on it.
"We are running hot, certainly running hot ... Can we cope? I pause. I say 'just'," he told the newspaper, referring to deployments of British troops in global hotspots dominated by the post-9/11 conflicts in
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
His comments came as military investigators continued to probe the cause of Saturday's crash of a Royal Air Force Nimrod MR2 reconnaissance plane over Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.........
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060904/ts_afp/afghanistannatoplanecrashbritainmilitary_060904080916