DAVID Cameron may have misled MPs in his bid to launch air strikes against Syria.
The Prime Minister is said to have rejected advice from senior defence and Whitehall staff over his claims 70,000 moderate Syrian troops would help the UK fight Daesh.
In a reference to Tony Blair’s dodgy dossier, military bosses warned Cameron his claim of 70,000 troops willing to help British forces would become a “45-minute moment”.
Cameron has repeatedly used the figure, despite questioning from senior and knowledgeable sources who claim the reality on the ground is significantly less and that most fighters are more concerned with defeating Assad than combating the Islamist militants.
The SNP’s Angus Robertson said it was “all too reminiscent” of Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier” that led Britain into the war in Iraq and that it called into question the legitimacy of the British operation in Syria.
A Whitehall source said: “They were Ministry of Defence officials who maybe felt scarred after the previous dossier. They looked at the latest text and said that could become the ‘45-minutes’ moment of this document. The concern was it will become the one thing that everyone latches on to, like the 45-minutes claim.”
Another MoD source told the paper “It’s got 45 minutes written all over it. Cameron didn’t think this through. If he really didn’t know about the MoD’s worries, he should have asked more questions about it.”
During Wednesday’s debate on air strikes, one Tory MP accused the Prime Minister of inventing “bogus battalions.”
Speaking yesterday, Robertson said the UK may have been taken to war based on the Prime Minister’s “wishful thinking.”
“David Cameron cannot ignore these warnings from the MoD over the credibility of this figure, which has sparked claims of ‘bogus battalions’,” Robertson said.
“We are told that there are 70,000 troops that are opposed to Assad and Daesh which could take the territory Daesh currently holds. The problem is, it seems only a part of those forces are moderate and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they would deploy as a unified army to counter Daesh.”
He went on: “What we’ve seen from the Prime Minister is wishful thinking because without a comprehensive ceasefire first in Syria, we can’t expect any re- direction of any forces from other fronts in Syria.
“The UK Government is going to have a huge problem with legitimacy for this operation in Syria. Quite simply the case for bombing Syria has not been made.’’
In response to the claims a spokesman for Downing Street denied that the Ministry of Defence had asked Cameron not to quote the figure.
He said: “The 70,000 figure was produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee, which includes in its membership officials from the Ministry of Defence.
“The Ministry of Defence did not raise concerns with No10 on whether this figure should be included in the PM’s response to the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
Yesterday Germany’s parliament passed a motion to send planes and soldiers to the region.
Tornado reconnaissance jets, a naval frigate, and 1,200 soldiers will all be sent to Syria by Germany.
The German involvement came as, according to the MoD, Tornados flew a reconnaissance mission to gather “intelligence on terrorist activity”.
Another two planes “patrolled over western Iraq” and “silenced” a “terrorist sniper team” with a “direct hit from a Paveway IV guided bomb”.
Two Typhoons flown to the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus from Lossiemouth were also launched for the first time last night. No details were released about their mission.
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