Prince Harry considered leaving army

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Harry said he considered leaving the army when he was told it was too dangerous for him to go to Iraq.

The 23-year-old Household Cavalry officer thought he should "bow out" after plans to deploy him as a troop leader were scrapped last May.

Harry was told of specific intelligence that his presence would put both him and his men at risk from insurgents.

But the third in line to the throne said an offer to retrain as a battlefield air controller with a view to going to Afghanistan stopped him leaving.

He has was finally deployed there on December 14 to work as a JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller).

"I wouldn't use the word quitting'," he said.

"It was a case of, I very much feel like if I'm going to cause this much chaos to a lot of people then maybe I should bow out and not just for my own sake, for everyone else's sake'.

"It was something that I thought about but at the same time I was very keen to make this happen - or hope for the opportunity to arise and luckily it has."

Despite his initial disappointment he accepted the decision.

"I would never want to put someone else's life in danger when they have to sit next to the bullet magnet," he said.

He said: "There was information that other people got that suggested that not only was my life in danger but the people that I served with - me being there may up the ante, rather than two contacts a day it would be six or seven.

"That was a risk that they weren't willing to take, which I completely accepted."

His first action on hearing the news that he was to stay behind was to tell the soldiers who would have been under his command - just 20 minutes before the news came out through the media.

"Before it got out in public I wanted to sit them down and say this is the story, this is what's happening, this is why', as much as I understood," he said.

"They, being the soldiers that they are, said: It's ridiculous, I would happily be under fire, be next to you as a troop leader' all this sort of stuff, as any troop leader or any officer or soldier would expect from another soldier - it's a sort of brotherhood."

But he added that he had always seen Afghanistan rather than Iraq as the place he wanted to go.

"I was getting reports back from Iraq and the guys saying that it really wasn't much fun and it was just boiling hot and they were just sitting around, not actually being able to do anything," he said.

Harry also said he "knew of" two people who had been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan but did not give more details.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths)