Britain risks sleep-walking into a full-scale war by launching missile strikes against Syria, former top brass warned last night.
Retired commanders cautioned that an ill-thought-out attack against President Assad’s brutal regime could provoke revenge attacks at home and abroad.
Lord West of Spithead, a former First Sea Lord, General Lord Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, and Major General , a commander during the first Gulf War, all warned of the ‘unintended consequences’ of a military campaign.
It also emerged that Israel was taking precautions against a possible Syrian attack, including bolstering missile defences and handing out gas masks to civilians.
A coalition spearheaded by the US, Britain and France is preparing to punish Assad for allegedly gassing to death hundreds of innocent people last week.
Defence chiefs favour a strike against important military installations, including airbases, arms dumps and communications hubs, using long-range cruise missiles fired from warships or submarines amassing in the Mediterranean.
The hope is that the attacks will deter Assad from using chemical weapons and make it more difficult for him to launch them in future.
But military grandees fear David Cameron and his allies might unwittingly escalate Syria’s civil war into a regional conflict in the Middle East, or even a proxy Cold War with Damascus’s key ally, Russia. » | Ian Drury | Published: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 | Updated: Thursday, August 29, 2013
