Under bombardment - the Prime Minister pretending to like the Armed Forces.
I’ve posted twice today about defence – first about Labour’s serious damage to the future of the Armed Forces, as the MOD finds itself saddled with £35bn of unfunded cost overruns. Then about Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup’s rightly harsh assessment of the Government’s procurement planning ahead of the Iraq war. Together, those are condemnatory; Labour not only managed to put soldiers’ lives at risk to avoid domestic political difficulties, the Government has also probably irreversibly impaired defence capabilities thanks to a decade of vain, ill-thought procurement that puts marginal constituencies and EU integration before the Forces’ actual needs.
This afternoon, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, General Lord Walker, gave further evidence to the Iraq inquiry, joining Sir Jock’s attack by saying that that Labour ministers demanded such tight defence cuts in the midst of two wars that the service chiefs threatened to resign (credit to the Press Association via the Indy):
General Lord Walker said things came to a head in the public spending round in early 2004, when the Treasury gave military chiefs a tough target for budget cuts.
He said: “There was indeed a list of stuff that we were having to make decisions about and I think we drew a line somewhere halfway down the page and said, ‘if you go any further than that you will probably have to look for a new set of chiefs’.”
The former head of the armed forces confirmed that helicopters were included in the list but were “above the line”.
He added: “It makes it sound as though we were happy with what was above the line. We weren’t happy with any of it.”
Whose hand held the purse strings before, during and after the Iraq war? Who demanded cuts from the Armed Forces even as soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why, our charming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who was the subject of a leak to today’s press concerning Labour’s increasingly vain and cynical defence procurement plans.
Pure coincidence that this leak occurred on the same day that two very senior – and very disgruntled – military officers were before the Iraq Inquiry, I’m sure. I mean, it wouldn’t be like Gordon Brown to try to pose as the soldiers’ friend for political gain, would it?
Filed under: Armed Forces, Defence, Gordon Brown, Labour | Tagged: Defence, Defence Procurement, Gordon Brown, Iraq
