Mike Jackson

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Sir Mike Jackson
born 21 March 1944
General Sir Mike Jackson Photo: Crown copyright
Nickname	Darth Vader Prince of Darkness
Place of birth	Lincolnshire
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1963 to 2006
Rank	General
Commands held	1st Bn Parachute Regiment 39 Infantry Brigade 3 (UK) Mechanised Division Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Land Command
Battles/wars	Northern Ireland Kosovo War Iraq War
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Commander of the Order of the British Empire Distinguished Service Order

General Sir Michael David "Mike" Jackson GCB, CBE, DSO, DL, (born 21 March 1944) is a British army officer, formerly Chief of the General Staff. He was formerly commander of KFor in Kosovo as well as UNPROFOR (see Timeline of UN peacekeeping missions) commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as second in command of a company of the Parachute Regiment in Derry during the events of Bloody Sunday and a company commander with the Parachute Regiment in South Armagh during the Warrenpoint Massacre.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Army career 2.1 NATO 2.2 Chief of the General Staff 3 Later career 4 References

[edit] Early life

Jackson's father was in the army. As a young boy Jackson was educated at Stamford School where he was also a cadet in the CCF. After his secondary education and Sandhurst he went on to the University of Birmingham to read Russian Studies before returning to full time soldiering.

[edit] Army career

Jackson was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps aged nineteen in 1963, specialising in the threat from the Soviet Union. He transferred to the Parachute Regiment in 1970 and was serving as a Company Second-in-Command in Northern Ireland when the regiment was involved in Bloody Sunday. He spent two years as Chief of Staff of the Berlin Infantry Brigade, then commanding a parachute company (B Company 2 PARA) in Northern Ireland, where he was involved in the aftermath of the Warrenpoint bombs, later rising to become the commanding officer of 1 Para from March 1984 to September 1986.

In 1989 he took command of 39 Infantry Brigade in Northern Ireland, a post he held until 1992.^[1]

In 1994 he was appointed General Officer Commanding 3 (UK) Mechanised Division and went on to be Director-General, Development & doctrine in 1996.^[1]

[edit] NATO

In 1997 Jackson was appointed Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. He served in the NATO chain of command as a deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark. In this capacity, he is best known for refusing, in June 1999, to block the runways of the Russian-occupied Pristina Airport, to isolate the Russian troops there.^[2] Had he complied with General Clark's order, there was a chance the British troops under his command could have come into armed conflict with the Russians; doing this without prior orders from Britain would have led to his dismissal for gross insubordination. On the other hand, defying Clark would have meant disobeying a direct order from a superior NATO officer (Clark was a four-star general; Jackson only a three-star). Jackson ultimately chose the latter course of action, reputedly saying "I won't start World War III for you",^[2] though the point became irrelevant when the American government prevailed upon the Hungarians, Romanians, and Bulgarians to prevent the Russians from using their airspace to fly reinforcements in. As a result, he was dubbed "Macho Jacko" by the British tabloid press. Among his own troops and the British press, however, Jackson had a reputation for being severe and prone to anger, earning him the nicknames "Darth Vader" and "Prince of Darkness".^[3]

Jackson went on to serve as Commander-in-Chief, Land Command from 2000 to 2003.

[edit] Chief of the General Staff

During the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War, Jackson, as Chief of the General Staff, ordered an inquiry into pictures released by the British tabloid The Daily Mirror that depicted alleged torture of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers. The Daily Mirror's editor Piers Morgan was later fired by the newspaper, after the pictures were shown to be a hoax.

On February 23, 2005, soldiers of 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, were found guilty of abuse of Iraqi prisoners arrested for looting at an army camp called Bread Basket, in Basra, during May of 2003. After they were sentenced, General Jackson made a statement on television and said that: he was "appalled and disappointed" when he first saw photographs of the Iraqi detainees and that

The incidents depicted are in direct contradiction to the core values and standards of the British Army ... Nevertheless, in the light of the evidence from this trial I do apologize on behalf of the army to those Iraqis who were abused and to the people of Iraq as a whole.

In March 2006, in the aftermath of British Christian peace campaigner Norman Kember's freeing from kidnappers after four months by a multinational armed force Jackson attracted interest when he, barely twenty four hours after Kember's liberation, attacked the hostage's lack of gratitude for the solidier's efforts in freeing him. Jackson claimed he was "saddened that there doesn’t seem to have been a note of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives to save those lives", and in doing so added to a media scrum demanding Kember's apology.

Jackson relinquished the post of Chief of Staff in 2006. From the Court Circular:

The Prince of Wales, Lieutenant General, afterwards received General Sir Michael Jackson upon relinquishing his appointment as Chief of the General Staff and General Sir Richard Dannatt upon assuming the appointment.

An inquest in to the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts, a British Army tank commander who was killed in Iraq, heard a tape that Roberts recorded three days before his death in which he accused General Jackson of telling "a blatant lie" when Jackson said that British troops were ready for war in Iraq.^[4]

[edit] Later career

On 6 December 2006 Jackson delivered the annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture in which he criticised the Ministry of Defence's running of the armed forces. He questioned the MoD's understanding of the fundamental ethos of the armed forces, he told his audience: "One's loyalty must be from the bottom. Sadly, I did not find this fundamental proposition shared by the MoD."

Jackson accused the MoD of fostering a culture of "commercial so-called 'best practice', with its... targets", hitting out at a "Kafkaesque situation whereby the MoD congratulates itself on achieving an accommodation improvement plan defined by itself on what it calls affordability, but which is far from what is defined by the needs of soldiers and their families".

An MoD spokesman responded that "While we do not agree with everything Sir Mike has said, we are always the first to recognise - for example in relation to medical services and accommodation - that although we have delivered real improvements, there is more we can do."^[5]

On 11 December 2006, it was revealed that he would be taking up consultancy positions with PA Consulting Group, Numis Securities and Risk Advisory Group.^[6] Around this time he had bags under his eyes surgically removed, ostensibly for health reasons.^[7]

On May 29, 2007, it was reported that General Jackson had come to the conclusion that innocent people had been shot by his troops on Bloody Sunday and that the "Falls Road Curfew" in Belfast in July 1970 had been a "mistake".^[8]

On 1 September 2007, The Daily Telegraph reported a "withering attack on the US's post-war administration of Iraq by General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the army during the invasion." The article said, "Sir Mike has condemned the approach taken by former Donald Rumsfeld as 'intellectually bankrupt' ", adding that the former US defence secretary is "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq", and that "Jackson feels the US approach to combating global terrorism is "inadequate" and too focused on military might rather than nation-building and diplomacy."^[9]

[edit] References

Military offices
Preceded by Sir Michael Walker	Commander-in-Chief, Land Command 2000–2003	Succeeded by Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman
Preceded by Sir Michael Walker	Chief of the General Staff 2003–2006	Succeeded by Sir Richard Dannatt

v • d • e Chiefs of the General Staff of the British Army Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff Sir William Nicholson • Sir John French • Sir Charles Douglas • Sir James Murray • Sir Archibald Murray • Sir William Robertson • Sir Henry Wilson • Lord Cavan • Sir George Milne • Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd • Sir Cyril Deverell • Viscount Gort • Sir Edmund Ironside • Sir John Dill • Sir Alan Brooke • Viscount Montgomery • Sir William Slim • Sir John Harding • Sir Gerald Templer • Sir Francis Festing • Sir Richard Hull Chiefs of the General Staff Sir Richard Hull • Sir James Cassels • Sir Geoffrey Baker • Sir Michael Carver • Sir Peter Hunt • Sir Roland Gibbs • Sir Edwin Bramall • Sir John Stanier • Sir Nigel Bagnall • Sir John Chapple • Sir Peter Inge • Sir Charles Guthrie • Sir Roger Wheeler • Sir Michael Walker • Sir Mike Jackson • Sir Richard Dannatt