A bit bloody late - by Richard... Wednesday, June 09, 2010

A bit bloody late - by Richard... Wednesday, June 09, 2010

I didn't realise how big The Times was running the Afghan story until I saw the full newspaper today – then to see that it was the main theme of the day, complete with thelead editorial headed: "Institutional Denial".

There, we are gravely told that: "The politicians have deserved criticism about Afghanistan. An investigation byThe Times shows that senior military personnel cannot escape blame either." And, just to cement this in, we get a comment piece from Anthony Loyd who tells us that the findings:

... reverse much of the received wisdom that the Labour Government, stingy in every allocation of manpower, resource and equipment, spendthrift only in soldiers' lives, was solely responsible for the misfortunes endured by our Army in Helmand.

Well, excuse me! It may have been your "received wisdom", but it wasn't mine. In this blog and the sister blog, Defence of the Realm, I have consistently – and almost entirely on my own – been writing posts like this and many more about the inadequacy of our general staff and their roles in the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thus, while the media was having wet dreams about the saintly Dannatt, and the blogosphere and media alike – along with the Tory opposition and its claque - was chanting "under-resourced" and "over-stretch", I was telling a completely different story.

Even then, it was in April last year that I finally finished Ministry of Defeat which embodies much of what The Times is saying today, but also much, much more, about Iraq and Afghanistan.

And did The Times review the book? Apart from Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph, did any defence correspondent take a blind bit of notice of it, or bother to review it? Did any of the clever-dick political blogs which were sooooo voluble about the underfunding, etc., etc., have a look and change their thinking?

For months now, my publicist and publisher have been telling me that the book - which has actually done quite well despite the lack of publicity – was ahead of its time, running themes that are only now beginning to make an appearance, which people are now only beginning to recognise. They could have read it a year ago in the book, and years before that on the blogs. But they were far too grand and clever to do that.

Significantly, Michael White in The Guardian today notes how The Times is rewriting the political narrative. But he observes that the "interesting shift" may reflect a diminished enthusiasm for beating up elected politicians over defence policy when they are Tory, not Labour.

That, of course, is what it was really all about. The media, the political classes and theclaque were not interested in the performance of the military, per se or what was really going wrong. The problems had a utility only in that they presented an opportunity to attack the Labour government. And if that meant supporting – and applauding – inadequate generals, while their troops died, so be it.

Says White, the refocus on professional errors is a useful corrective. The top brass has been unusually vocal in attacking Labour's military failures in office – think General Sir Richard Dannatt, whose advice seems to have been quietly shelved by the incoming government now that he's served his purpose as a high-profile defector from the ranks. Now its own role is being more closely examined.

Of course, it's a bit bloody late – too bloody late, some might say, and far too bloody late for the troops who died in shit kit because the generals had their heads up their arses.

So yes, I am angry – bloody angry. The time, the effort, the skill, and the risks taken by some really serious people in the background who kept me informed and told me what was really going on, went largely to waste - because what people really wanted was a stick to beat the government. And dead soldiers were as good a stick as any to exploit.

While a fundamentally unserious media played its games, men died unnecessarily. Too late were the failings of the generals realised - but they were not "realised" because no one wanted to know. It was not politically convenient.

Britain's soldiery have had it bad these past seven years of war, writes Loyd. One of the burdens under which they labour was that: "among their generals lurk donkeys in disguise." "Carelessness, arrogance and a reluctance to learn from the mistakes of Iraq appear to have shadowed every step of the Army's planning for the Helmand mission."

As I say, a bit bloody late to start pointing that out now. Where were you four years ago?

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Another one down - by Richard...

NATO says a helicopter has been shot down in the Sangin district. Four troops have been killed. The Taliban claims responsibility.

The Times is reporting that the aircraft was a US Blackhawk, attempting to pick up a British casualty. It came under fire around midday over Forward Operating Base Jackson, near the British-held town of Sangin.

With others, the BBC is reporting that the aircraft was brought down with an RPG and that it crashed in the Sangin district bazaar.

This seems almost an exact re-run of the Mi-26 downing in Sangin last July. It too was brought down by an RPG as it was approaching FOB Jackson - in apparently much the same area.

The current incident follows the recent downing of a Sea King as it came in to land at a checkpoint in Nad-e Ali, also struck by an RPG. The hit was described at the time as a freak "lucky shot." Five soldiers were injured.

However, since the soldiers in this incident are American and it was a US helicopter that was lost - albeit in a British area of operation, coming to the aid of the British - the notoriously parochial British media is barely reporting it.

It would have been a different matter entirely if a British helicopter had been shot down, and four Brits killed - but there you go. Who are we to question the news values of the British media?

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Slime shall feed upon slime - by Richard...

It is so comforting to see the Cleggerons maintain the standards set by their predecessors, the Blairs, whose probity was unparalleled and their concerns forself-enrichment public service beyond measure.

But, of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Miriam Gonzalez - the City lawyer who just happens to be married to deputy Cleggeron leader Nick Clegg - joining the board of Spanish infrastructure group Acciona.

And the fact that this group specialises, amongst other things, in developing wind farm sites will have no effect on the thinking of Nick Clegg. He is after all already supportive of this stupidity, rather like his boss, the Boy Cameron.

One thing for sure, though - the very tidy income the Cleggies now pull in will allow them to weather the financial crises that they and their ilk have helped create. Hardship, like rules and taxes, is for the little people. The slime look after themselves.

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Statements of the obvious - by Richard...

Having started the day yesterday at four in the morning, to catch a train to get to London for a meeting starting at nine, and then to catch the 11.30pm back to Leeds, falling into my pit at three this morning, that has given me a comfortable 23-hour day.

Under the circumstances, blogging is not going to be totally coherent for a little while – which possibly makes for an improvement. Nevertheless, a quick comment on this piece in The Times is irresistible, especially in view of the post I wrote here.

In my piece, I remark on the parallels between the conduct of the French campaign in IndoChina and the current fight in Afghanistan, noting the propensity to under-estimate the enemy. With that observation in mind, we now read in The Times of a "two-month investigation" which includes interviews with 32 senior military, political and Civil Service figures.

It "reveals" that there was deep disquiet over the handling of the mission from the start, with top ranks within the MoD and other Whitehall departments accused of – in particular - "grossly underestimating the threat from the Taleban".

But you didn't need two months and 32 interviews to tell you that. It was obvious from the public statements of the players, the press reports and observations of tactics and equipments. And it was obvious years ago when we could see that the Taliban was losing the conventional battle and would turn to the IED as the weapon of choice.

Other failures claimed were, " ignoring warnings that planned troop numbers were inadequate" and "offering only the military advice they thought ministers wanted to hear", the latter often involving second-guessing the minister's preferences and getting them wrong – assuming the minister wanted to hear good news when, in fact, he was struggling to get unvarnished opinion.

Most damning though is the observation from a senior serving officer who asked not to be named. He said of the planning stage: "There was institutional ignorance and denial. We who had bothered to put a bit of work in and had done the estimate realised that we needed much more than we were being given."

Another source said that the military was pushing hard for the mission despite warnings that preparations were inadequate. "The advice to ministers grossly underestimated the risks," he said. "The few people who were doubters were either too cowardly or too cautious to say what they really thought."

That may be true, but only within the military. Outside the loop, there were people warning of the risks, and what was needed. But they were ignored and, years later, we get a popular newspaper making statements of the obvious. It is a pity, really, that it wasn't saying these things four years ago.

And yet, some people (pictured) still think we're winning. Could they possibly be right?

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