When you've pissed off the senior ranks in a group like the SAS

enough that they're ALL ready to resign, you have well and truly screwed the pooch.
But this time it was personal. The targets were two of their own. That was when the call came – on a secure line from a military bunker just outside London. The Lt-Col could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Permission not granted. There are more important things than the lives of the soldiers.’

The voice was that of a senior general at Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, the UK nerve centre of the war.

That was when the Lt-Col realised that his biggest challenge would be the top brass at home. The men waiting on the runway were flabbergasted when they heard. ‘People were pretty fired up,’ one source close to the regiment said. ‘And then there was the let down. The CO was furious.’

It was then the commanding officer made the decision that could have seen him and his brother officers hauled over the coals. The alternative, they agreed, was to resign en masse in disgust.

He picked up the phone and made the fateful call. ‘We’re doing it anyway,’ he said. Minutes later the C-130 took off. There was no going back. BASRA was originally proclaimed a beacon for post-war Iraq, a model of how to hand over control to the local population.

The whole situation was effed-up for political reasons, and it led to this(among other things). You get the impression that Brown and his Labour Government would happily have hung the whole British Army in Iraq out to dry rather than actually worry about winning.

I wonder if the clowns still in charge of so much of the Brit government have any idea how fortunate they are that there are still troops like these willing to serve?