By Mark Urban Diplomatic editor, Newsnight

Mark Urban in Iraq

"Yes, it's really good", he replies with a sheepish smile.

Lyle is 19 years old and it is his first operational tour.

Older colleagues in the 1st Battalion, Light Infantry, serving there for the third time might beg to differ.

Not unique

Iraq has lost its novelty for many, and the short time between tours poses all kinds of stresses, particularly for those with wives and kids. But talking to Lyle is a reminder that answers to questions about overstretch depend on who you speak to.

Lyle is not unique. One battalion that returned a few months ago from Afghanistan asked whether any men wanted to volunteer to make up the numbers of another regiment now on its way to Iraq. To the Commanding Officer's surprise, more than 70 came forward.

Overstretch

There is one constant that those outside the services should never forget: a contented soldier likes being on operations.

Faced with a government that is loath to admit to any shortcomings and an opposition that plays constantly on the overstretch theme, the views of many servicemen and women are surprisingly hard to categorise. So much depends on the speaker's stage of life, a unit's recent experience and whether they have 'good kit' or bad.

There is one constant that those outside the services should never forget: a contented soldier likes being on operations.

More than that, talk to some of those recently returned with the 3 PARA Battlegroup from Afghanistan and it is clear, they like fighting. They also like to deliver success, against the odds, from the most unpromising human or material ingredients.

These are feelings that many who voice outrage on behalf of the forces simply do not understand. Few who have not experienced service life, moreover, realise that one of the by-products of the forces' machine firing up and achieving its extraordinary feats is "chuntering", "ticking", "gobbing off"; in other words complaining.

Unhappy

The Ministry of Defence's present difficulties arise because many of those it is sending on operations are not content.

Younger soldiers often have a different outlook on operations

The theoretical two year gap between operational tours has not been preserved, there are family pressures and doubts about the Iraqi and Afghan missions.

This has hit them hard in the middle ranks - majors (usually in the 30-40 age bracket) or senior non-commissioned officers have left in their hundreds, creating the risk identified by General Sir Richard Dannatt that the army might be 'broken' by its current operational commitments.

Looking at the situation faced by some of those supporting current operations - for example the Royal Air Force Hercules crews or those from the three services flying support helicopters, it is hardly surprising that many are unhappy.

Flyers tend to be older, with family commitments, they have gruelling operational commitments and have some long-standing problems with equipment, such as the glacial pace of a plan to re-fit the Hercules fleet with safer fuel tanks.

Tents

While staying recently with the 1st Light Infantry in Basra, I suspected that the Newsnight camerawoman and I had upset our hosts by asking to spend our two nights under the hard cover of the Shatt al-Arab Hotel base rather than in the tent allocated us outside. It was a few feet from one in which a soldier had been killed four days before our arrival by a mortar bomb.

I could see that our request for an alternative had rankled with some of the soldiers, but the tension was defused when one officer told me, "I don't blame you, I wouldn't sleep there if I had a choice".

Snatch Land Rovers offer little protection from roadside bombs

The question of why British troops should be in tents three and a half years after making the Shatt al-Arab Hotel a base is another example of the kind of thing that upsets them - particularly when Foreign Office people at Basra's palace sleep in hardened "pods", each with its own bathroom, and have access to a swimming pool.

The fighting men suspect that poor administration and penny-pinching are the reasons why their accommodation remains so basic.

New vehicles

Ask soldiers about the 'snatch' Land Rover, that thinly armoured runabout seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and the responses are quite surprising.

They know the snatch is poorly protected but those I have spoken to are not happy about its gargantuan replacement, procured hurriedly by ministers in response to a media and opposition campaign.

"It's far too wide", says an officer in Basra, denouncing the new vehicle, arguing the snatch is much better for getting into narrow lanes where the Warrior can't go. "A complete waste of money", complains another, "it would have been better spent on another infantry battalion".

'We get bored quickly', explains one middle-ranking officer, 'the time to be in Iraq was on the first tour or the last'

Soldiers themselves are divided about the right mix of protection, mobility and size that would define a vehicle for a place like Basra. The remark about forming another battalion, furthermore, implies that measures that relieve the pressure of operational tours would be more welcome. But here too there are caveats and curiously contradictory attitudes expressed by those who fight.

Lobbying

Generals lobbied hard in Whitehall for the Afghan mission - and it is the cause of much of the current stress. Ministers took the political decision to go to Afghanistan, but the size of force, its mix of units and the high risk strategy of occupying the "platoon houses" in upland Helmand province were all choices made by those in uniform.

Despite the 17 deaths in Helmand this summer, many soldiers would love to go there.

Warrior armoured vehicles offer less access in towns for troops

"We get bored quickly", explains one middle-ranking officer, "the time to be in Iraq was on the first tour or the last". As Gen Dannatt argues for a rundown "soon" in Iraq, those plugged in to the army rumour machine report that the Chief of General Staff is keen to halve numbers in Iraq by mid-2007 so that the strength in Afghanistan might be raised in October 2007 to two or three infantry battalions rather than the current one.

In other words the benefits in lessening overstretch and giving everyone more time at home that might accrue from cutting back in Iraq may disappear almost immediately, as the fighting strength in Afghanistan is increased.

Cap-badge politics

Ambitious officers, take note, are often the authors of overstretch.

Cap-badge politics - the arguments between different groups in uniform - can make that problem worse. It is these passions of "what we trained for" that prevent more aircrew being switched into support helicopters or armoured regiments asked to crew Warriors in Basra instead of tanks.

Either step could ease the pressure, leading to longer gaps between tours.

Ministers, no doubt, take the decisions about entering an unpopular war, but when the consequences are being measured, the journalistic narrative of backing "our boys" against the suits is too simple by far.