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| Sir David Richards |
David Cameron could have squeezed ISIS 'out of existence' two years ago if he had accepted a top secret plan presented to him by the army, the former head of the British military revealed today.
General Sir David Richards said he gave the Prime Minister a strategy to defeat Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2012, but it was rejected.
He said the plan would have removed the dictator from power and allowed the moderate Syrian opposition to crush ISIS radicals before they established a foothold.
The revelation comes as Nato leaders consider plans to launch bombing raids on ISIS rebel commanders holding key towns in northern Iraq and Syria, where they claim to have carved out there own 'Islamic State'.
Speaking this morning, Lord Richards said ISIS had grown in power because the West had failed to help moderate opposition rebels topple President Assad.
The bombshell claim comes amid mounting criticism of President Barack Obama after he admitted that he did not have a 'strategy' to deal with the growing threat posed by ISIS.
Two US journalists - Steven Sotloff and James Foley - have been beheaded by fanatics from the self-proclaimed Islamic State and a British hostage, David Haines, has been threatened with execution over Western intervention in the region.
Lord Richards, speaking to the BBC's Today programme, said ISIS was finally being confronted - but suggested it had come far too late.
He said if Britain had acted in 2012 ISIS would not now exist.
‘Back in 2011/12 when focussing on Assad I did offer a coherent military strategy to deal with that,' he revealed.
Lord Richards added: ‘It was too much, as someone said, more than the market would bare. People hadn’t really understood the significance of what was happening in Syria at the time. And hadn’t really realised that ISIS could grow into the hydra that it has.’
He said his plan - which was presented to the Prime Minister and considered at the 'highest levels in Washington - envisaged supporting the opposition groups fighting Assad while growing and training a ‘government in waiting’. He said this would have taken around a year to put in place.
He added: ‘At the point of committal I can tell you we would have beaten Assad.
‘And the Islamist extremists would have been squeezed out of existence by their own people in the process because everyone just wants to win.
‘The reason ISIS has developed in the way it has is in part through frustration at the lack of coherent and really meaningful assistance to the Arabs.’
Lord Richards' remarks came after Mr Cameron last night indicated British involvement in air strikes against jihadists in Syria and Iraq could begin within weeks.
The Prime Minister spoke publicly for the first time about striking Islamist targets in Syria without President Assad’s consent.
He also signalled that British attacks on ISIS forces could come as soon as the country agrees a new government this month.
The development came after it emerged three senior members of ISIS have been killed in a US airstrike in northern Iraq, according to senior security officials.
Two days after a video showing the execution of US journalist Steven Sotloff was released, US warplanes struck at the heart of ISIS in Mosul, northern Iraq, killing the wanted jihadist Abu Hajar Al-Sufi – the right hand man to terror chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Lord Richards welcomed the growing evidence that a plan to beat ISIS was finally emerging. He said: ‘Things have moved on pretty well.’
He added: ‘If you think about it ISIS has been contained which is the key first element of any strategy and has even started to be shrunk which I think is the next bit. After that you defeat.'
But he warned: ‘We haven’t got a coherent generational strategy yet.
‘I do think that strategy, which we came up with in 2012, could be the bare bones of how to deal with ISIS.
‘It was discussed at the highest levels in Washington. But it was more than the market would bare, as I was told, and we got on and did what has happened between then and now.
‘It wasn’t accepted, I don’t think it could be the basis for something today.’
Lord Richards said the first thing Britain had to do was to ‘contain’ ISIS. He said you then start ‘squeezing the problem’ before ultimately defeating it.
He added: ‘It’s no good the world only thinking that ISIS is the problem. This is happening all over the world. It needs to be the first stage in a much more grand strategic plan to once and for all deal with Muslim extremism.’ He said we would have to deal with Nigeria, Kenya, Yemen, Pakistan and Myanmar.
The second stage is for ISIS to be ‘squeezed’. He said that was not all about military. But he said: ‘You’ve got to get all nations in the world on side and most importantly the Gulf Arabs.’
The former military chief said the plan needed Western leadership.
He said ‘one way or another’ Britain and US would have to deal with Assad.
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