Fairly obvious as soon as Blair confirmed that the military would be standing-in for the firefighters during strike action, it takes the US asking for a british military commitment to Iraq to get the MOD to 'fess up that a lot of our boys are a bit busy putting out fires, er, sorry. Can we get back to you?

Here's how an english-language source from Saudi Arabia put it:
Only the faithful British are committed to support Bush. However, embarrassingly for Prime Minister Tony Blair, when the US yesterday asked formally for London’s support, a top British Army officer warned that since 19,000 military personnel are currently manning fire engines, because of an unresolved UK firefighters’ strike, he was not sure that the armed forces had sufficient manpower. And even without having to fight fires, the British could not put a divisional-size force into an assault on Iraq before next February or March.