Armchair generals call for reinforcements TV punditry faces logistical crisis by Albert Jazeera Some of the leading armchair generals in the war against Iraq have spoken of the urgent need for more manpower.
"It's incessant," muttered one academic as he was chauffeured from Broadcasting House to Channel 4's studios yesterday. "Week after week, I have to form plausible new theories about what will happen from almost no information. It's too much, we need more men and soon."
There has also been unexpectedly stiff resistance by some interviewers who have queried and harried the armchair generals over some of their more unusual hypotheses.
Worse, friendly fire incidents have multiplied with pundits encountering each other on such a regular basis that familiarity is leading to contempt. "It was when I got told that the classic pincer movement around Nasiriyah I'd suggested was a mistake that I finally flipped," admitted one armchair general now demoted to sofa brigadier.
For some at least, the war is already over. Burnt out with the pressure of trying to cope with the demands of 24-hour news channels, international news magazines and radio punditry, several military commentators have already given up and returned to civilian life, leaving their body mikes and stage make-up on the floor when they fled.
Speaking from his home in a dull but pretty part of Surrey after relieved of his command of a cable news analysis show, one veteran was phlegmatic: "You'll not be seeing me back again. I've had enough. This is not my war. I just want to see peace on the airwaves and to go back to writing the occasional column for the Daily Telegraph about some small war in Africa."
Although replacements are being sent in from the reserve team and more people trained up to full blather-fitness, there remains the serious issue of people not being where they are needed most.
"Modern armchair generalship is all about logistics," pontificated one expert, "if they're not in the right place at the right time then they're no use. Anyone can opine about the strategic value of Um Qasr or the defensive capability of the Special Republican Guard but if you're at Channel 4 when you should be at CNN then you've failed."
