David Richards (British Army Officer) - Army Career

Army Career

He served with the Royal Artillery in the Far East, Germany and the United Kingdom, including three tours in Northern Ireland, and served on the staff of the 11th Armoured Brigade in Germany. He was promoted lieutenant in 1974 and captain in 1977. He attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1984. Promoted to Major that year, he returned to 11th Armoured Brigade to command a field battery in 47th Field Regiment. He then served as the Chief of Staff of the Berlin Brigade for two years, before being promoted Lieutenant-Colonel on 30 June 1989. He served as an instructor at the Staff College for three years, and was then given command of the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery.

In 1994 he joined the Ministry of Defence as Colonel Army Plans. In December 1995, after completing the Higher Command and Staff course, he was promoted Brigadier and then became Commander of the 4th Armoured Brigade in Germany. He became Chief of Joint Force Operations at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in 1998. In this role, as the default commander for short notice expeditionary operations, he commanded the UK Contingent in East Timor in 1999 and twice commanded a UK Joint Task Force in Sierra Leone in 2000.

In 2000, during the Sierra Leone Civil War, he was in command of Operation Palliser, ostensibly to rescue British and other foreign nationals but which he then independently transformed into a commitment to support the embattled national president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and lead the defence of his capital Freetown against the Revolutionary United Front. Although not initially sanctioned by London, the action was cited as a second example of the kind of liberal military intervention previously seen in Kosovo, and as such attributed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In April 2001 he became Chief of Staff of NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, with the rank of Major General. He became the British Assistant Chief of the General Staff in 2002, and on 19 January 2005 became the Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, which carried promotion to Lieutenant General.

In July 2006, command of the international forces (the International Security Assistance Force) in southern Afghanistan was passed to NATO forces under his command and he was promoted to the acting rank of full General (4-star). On returning from Afghanistan, he reverted to his previous rank of Lieutenant-General. On 1 February 2008 he was promoted to substantive General and appointed Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces in succession to General Sir Redmond Watt, and on 12 June 2008 he was appointed Aide-de-Camp General to The Queen. On 17 October 2008, The Independent revealed his appointment as the next Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the Army. The Ministry of Defence later confirmed that he would take up the post in August 2009. In early August 2009, just before taking up his post, Richards was widely criticised when he claimed that British troops may have a role in Afghanistan for up to 40 years. General Sir Richard Dannatt handed over his appointment as Chief of the General Staff at midday on 28 August 2009 to Richards.

Allegations surfaced in September 2009 of a Labour Party plot to smear the general because his daughter worked for the Conservative Party. The threat to target the general, who had taken up his new job just nine days before most of the reports appeared, was widely reported to have been one of the real reasons that Labour MP Eric Joyce resigned as an aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth.

In February 2010 Richards said that a "turning point" had been reached in the battle against the Taliban. He suggested troop numbers could begin to decline as early as 2011 while the majority would be withdrawn by 2015. Richards said "we are now seeing some very optimistic signs" in the latest military offensive, Operation Moshtarak (togetherness), in Helmand. The Taliban had been forced to give "serious consideration" about continuing the fight. Richards said that: "We expect the military conflict to trail off in 2011," who was visiting British front-line forces for the first time since taking command of the Army last year. "The combat role will start to decline in 2011, but we will remain militarily engaged in training and support roles for another five years, and we will remain in a support role for many years to come."

He said that "The Taliban is now beginning to realise that they can lose this war, which was not the view they had a year ago. We have to reinforce the view that they can, and will, be beaten." In 2010, however, he also stated in a radio interview that "I think there's no reason why we shouldn't be looking at pretty soon".

On 14 July 2010 the Ministry of Defence announced that in October 2010 Richards would become the next Chief of the Defence Staff in succession to Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup. Downing Street, in a press statement to announce the intended ennoblement of Sir Jock, also announced in the same release that Sir David would take up his new post as Chief of the Defence Staff on Friday 29 October 2010, immediately after the retirement of Sir Jock.

In November 2010 General Richards said there was no desire to "open up another front" in the Middle East but suggested that in future it "might be" necessary. David Cameron told Parliament that Britain would "take every step to cut out the terrorist cancer that lurks in the Arabian Peninsula", but Gen Richards said an intelligence-led approach was the current strategy. Richards added: "Clearly, the primary agencies dealing with this are our intelligence and security agencies. But the military are already helping with their training. I don't think we want to open up another front there and nor do the Yemenis want us to do that. So we have to find other ways of doing these things and in the meantime making sure Afghanistan doesn't revert to becoming, if you like, a 'second Yemen' – that is the Army's primary duty at the moment. Our role is to remain very close to them, to help them where they most need it and in the meanwhile focus our efforts on Afghanistan and assisting Pakistan to ensure they don't become the threat Yemen is beginning to be.

In May 2011 Gen Richards and other senior NATO officers want backing from member states to intensify the war effort in Libya by directly targeting Col Gaddafi's regime, rather than simply protecting Libyan civilians. "The military campaign to date has been a significant success for NATO and our Arab allies, but we need to do more. If we do not up the ante now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Gaddafi clinging to power," said Gen Richards. He added that, while NATO forces were not targeting Col Gaddafi directly, he could nevertheless become a legitimate target if he was caught directly attacks against Libyan civilians. "The United Nations resolution allows Nato to use 'all necessary means' in Libya," he said. "We are not targeting Gaddafi directly, but if it happened that he was in a command and control centre that was hit by Nato and he was killed, then that is within the rules."