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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I am joined now from Norfolk by the former Head of the Army, General Lord Richard Dannatt, a very good morning to you.  Straight away COBRA meets, the emergency committee meeting in Downing Street, what in your view are the options in front of Mr Cameron?

LORD DANNATT: Well Mr Cameron and his colleagues and myself and everyone I think first will have to say that one’s sympathy goes out to the Haines family and in the face of this evil barbarity that we have seen once again being perpetrated and being plastered all over our screens, we realise that actually we have to redouble our determination or find new determination to face down and to destroy this challenge from Islamic State.  So what are David Cameron and his COBRA colleagues going to be talking about?  Well I think first and foremost they have got to reflect on the fact that whereas three or four weeks ago the Americans, President Obama, didn’t have a strategy.  He has now got a strategy, he is putting together a coalition of ten regional axes from the Middle East region, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries and it is right that we support them, we support them in the strongest possible way.  There is no desire to put British and American, Western boots on the ground but the Peshmerga, the Syrian Army, the Iraqi Army, the Free Syrian Army are all there on the ground and we need to support them with weapons, equipment, training, intelligence and with air strikes and it is interesting to see the support that the Australians are now giving and I think that is a very good thing for them to be doing.  I’m sure that our government will be thinking about what more can they be doing to support this regional coalition in its fight against Islamic State.

DM: What specifically though, the hostages?  It is painstaking work as we can all see assembling this coalition and as President Obama has told us, it could take years to deal with Islamic State.  What about the immediate danger and threat to those hostages, is there anything that can be done within the coalition building?

LORD DANNATT: Well I’m sure there is and I’m quite sure that we are doing all that we can do.  It is really important that we try and identify the people who are perpetrating these acts, the Prime Minister has already said that.   It is also very important that we do all that we possibly can, and this may be – well it is very challenging but it may be too difficult to try and find where other hostages are being kept, and to analyse if there is any chance of effecting any kind of rescue mission.  We have wonderful special forces but they are not super people, they can only do what is humanly possible but I am quite sure that if it is thought that if there is an acceptable risk that could be run to try and rescue some of the Western hostages then that will be done but I’m afraid, as hard as it is to say, even these serial repetitions of murders being put on television screens they must not lead out government to conclude that this is too difficult, too dangerous and that we do nothing because if we don’t confront and destroy these Islamic State jihadi fighters then their influence will grow, their confidence will grow and the problem will get bigger.  We have got to do the right thing, even if it is not currently the popular thing, or otherwise we will regret not taking decisive action.

DM: And this decisive action, some as we know taking place already in the form of air strikes.  Would you take the view that just as paying ransoms only encourages hostage taking, so a pause in that military action would only be playing to the tune of Islamic State?

LORD DANNATT: I’m sure it will.  I can’t think what a pause would achieve whatsoever, pressure must be kept on them.  I think people have to realise that time is not on our side, Islamic State has currently got the momentum and it needs to be faced down and if air power is used correctly it can have an effect.  Look at even their own comments about the effect of bombing against air forces in the Tabqa Dam area and I think this whole business of recognising that whereas we’re not going to put Western boots on the ground in large numbers because I think the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows us that Western boots on the ground can become, whatever the best intentions are, more part of the problem than the solution, we need to get in supporting the Peshmerga, the Free Syrian Army who I think we can support now and also the Iraqi Army once again, to give them the encouragement, give them the training, give them the equipment that they need to fight and face down the Islamic State jihadi fighters and support them with intelligence, support them with information and support them with weapons from the air.

DM: And General Dannatt, last thought on the Scottish independence referendum, I’m of course in Edinburgh today reporting on the closing stages of this very close fought referendum, we’re talking here, we’re discussing a UK response to this threat from Islamic State, in your view – and these threats presumably won’t go away – in your view would a UK wide response be terribly weakened by an independent Scotland, by Scotland leaving the Union?

LORD DANNATT: I’m worried hugely about Scotland leaving the Union.  I’ve got lots of Scottish friends, I love Scotland, I spend time in Scotland myself and you’ve probably seen I’ve got an article in the Sunday Telegraph today reflecting on what I find quite extraordinary really, I spent my first ten or fifteen years of my army life fighting in Northern Ireland, burying comrades in Northern Ireland, alongside Scottish soldiers in Northern Ireland where we were fighting to preserve the Union against the IRA who wanted to take Northern Ireland out of the Union.  But I just wonder what the families of Scottish soldiers who lost their lives in Northern Ireland, Scottish soldiers who lost their lives fighting for this country in external wars, what they are kind of making of all this.  We are much better together and in defence terms I really worry that Scotland will struggle to have any kind of meaningful defence capability.  Armies, Navies, Air Forces, you can’t grow them overnight, we’ve got superb armed forces in this country but they work because they are made up of English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and there are things like jobs, industry, ship building, all these kind of things have got to be thought about.  Scotland are putting themselves in a poor place in external defence and security terms if it chooses to fragment from the rest of us.

DM: Lord Dannatt, thank you very much indeed.