General Sir Mike Jackson

ANDREW MARR: So as you've just heard, Prince Harry does want to return to the front line as soon as he can, and his brother Prince William would like to go as well.

Speaking for the first time since news of Harry's deployment broke I'm now joined by the former head of the British Army, General Sir Mike Jackson. Thank you very much for coming in. Not a very military haircut that, was it?

MIKE JACKSON: Not many barbers perhaps in the desert, in southern Afghanistan!

ANDREW MARR: He wants to go back, and Prince William wants to go too. Realistically that's not going to happen is it?

MIKE JACKSON: Well I don't know. As Prince Harry has said, he's now got a campaign medal, I wonder whether it'll be the first and only one, somehow I doubt that.

ANDREW MARR: You think, you think they might go back, because it has been a remarkable period of reticence by the British media, but sort of inevitable in the world that we live in, that somebody eventually blows the gaff?

MIKE JACKSON: Yes, not in Britain...

ANDREW MARR: Not in Britain.

MIKE JACKSON: ...I note, and it was a pretty irresponsible and selfish thing to do in my view. No, I think the British media get a real plaudit from this because they kept their side of the bargain and, you know, one recognises that.

ANDREW MARR: After what's been seen across the media in the last couple of days, about Prince Harry, and all the film from out there, there is going to be a great spike in recruiting isn't there?

MIKE JACKSON: Well, it's not unhelpful shall we say, I'm sure. And the young prince I thought put it rather vividly, that the sense of comradeship, the sense of common purpose which is absolutely accurate, I mean he's got the sense of it, and I would say to any young person in this country with good red blood in their veins - if you want challenge, responsibility, give it a thought.

ANDREW MARR: I suppose that may have been what Jon Snow, the Channel 4 newscaster was getting at when he said the media shouldn't have colluded, he would argue perhaps that this was part of a sort of clever recruiting wheeze, the whole business.

MIKE JACKSON: I think that's really going rather far. I don't understand that approach because unless there was the bargain the event wouldn't happen at all.

ANDREW MARR: Mmm.

MIKE JACKSON: There had to be the bargain. Because, if you remember this time last year when the possibility of young Prince Harry deploying was in the air, it got absolutely thrashed out in the public press with long sights and all of that, that's not the way to do it.

ANDREW MARR: The reason I'm sceptical about whether he'll go back again is simply that, I mean, he is such a recognisable figure, now that the Taliban and Al Qaeda and others know that it's possible, people will be watching in a different way for this to happen, it'll be that much more dangerous for him, and of course for all the people around him if it happens again.

MIKE JACKSON: Well, I think one of the absolutely basic considerations for the Army as a whole and, and for the young man itself, is that whatever happens that he, his movements or whatever, does not put anybody else at greater risk than they would otherwise be. And I think that's a sine qua non. But they're always rounded perhaps, we'll see.

ANDREW MARR: All right. Can I ask you, we were talking about Kosovo earlier on. Now you know Kosovo well, you were there in '99, and you had that famous stand-off with the Russians, and indeed with the Americans in Pristina . Can I ask, did you actually say to General Clarke that you weren't going to start a third world war for him?

MIKE JACKSON: Well my memory's a bit sort of um, a bit thin on that one. He says in his own book that I did. I'm not going to dispute it.

ANDREW MARR: All right.

MIKE JACKSON: It's in my own book as well, you might want to ....

ANDREW MARR: Yeah, OK. Now, it's clearly a dangerous moment. The Russians are saying they're going to do such things they know not of, but they're going to be terrible things when they do them. Do we take this seriously?

MIKE JACKSON: I think it is wise to take on board that where we've got to sadly is not an agreed settlement, it is a unilateral action which has been recognised by some leading countries, but certainly not all. There is no agreement with Belgrade and ergo, no agreement thereby with Moscow.

And I think we ought to be quite clear that although some argue that everything was on the side of this unilateral declaration, and there's a case in international law which says not, and the Russians are measuring on this. We ought to take it seriously. I'm not saying they're sabre-rattling or anything of that nature, but I think they do feel that the West has gone perhaps a little further than certainly they would wish.

ANDREW MARR: Have we pressed the Russians too far? Not just over Kosovo, but generally?

MIKE JACKSON: Well it's an interesting question. I'm not sure that as the cold war ended that the west was perhaps as generous to Russia as it could well have been. That's a personal opinion. And there was a crisis in '99, not the theatre of the Pristina Airport, but underlying that again the sense, I think, by Russia that here was the west conducting military operations against a fraternal Slav country without a UN Security Council resolution.

And a sense that perhaps Russia was being ignored. And I think what comes out of the last seven-eight years is a sense, in Russia, that you in the west - yes the Cold War is a matter of the past - but do not forget that we are a major nation on this planet, we're a permanent member of the Security Council, and we have an important part to play on the world stage, don't forget that. I think that's the message that's being sent.

ANDREW MARR: As former head of the Army, looking at the coverage of the Harry episode and all the film and so on, has this been a sort of turnaround moment from the way that the public have seen the Army, do you think it's important in terms of the way the Army is seen?

MIKE JACKSON: I think it could be, I don't know if it's quite as dramatic as a turnaround moment, but I think because the film crews were there, they were actually inside, it gives quite a good sense of what it's like being a British soldier today on operations.

And I think it's something which hasn't really been there up till now. Yes there's been, of course comment about whether we should be there in the first place, what we're doing, the casualties. But there hasn't really been an inside look and I think that's come out of this quite well.

ANDREW MARR: Realistically, one final time, he can't go back, can he, after all this time?

MIKE JACKSON: Oh I wouldn't rule it out at all.

ANDREW MARR: Really.

MIKE JACKSON: Provided the arrangements are such that as I say, there's no, he does not increase risk to others, we'll see.

ANDREW MARR: And William too?

MIKE JACKSON: That is I think rather more difficult.

ANDREW MARR: Because he's heir to the throne.

MIKE JACKSON: It's not for me, Andrew, I feel very strongly that, you know, it's 18 months since I left, it's not for me to pontificate about this. There are some difficult judgements to make and I don't get access to intelligence now, some difficult judgements to make.

I think, you know, we should allow those whose responsibility, my successor for example who handled this I think very well indeed, to come to those judgements as circumstances actually bring them to at the time.

ANDREW MARR: And when you say responsibility that really, that means also presumably the media, who require another act of collective self-denial?

MIKE JACKSON: It would seem so to me, I can't think of another way round it. But what can be done once surely could be done twice.

It's in everybody's interests, including the Army's, most importantly, but to say nothing of young Prince Harry himself. I mean he's a good soldier and he wants - you've heard him - "I want to go back, I want to go on operations". And, dare I say it, all credit to the media too.

ANDREW MARR: Well we don't often hear that. General Sir Mike Jackson, thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

Your comments

Disclaimer: The BBC may edit your comments and cannot guarantee that all emails will be published.