Let's not

Move along there, nothing to see here, writes Richard Dannatt: "We must not dwell on the errors of the past". The fact that the Saville Inquiry has taken nearly 38 years to arrive at the truth means that its lessons are of limited use, Dannatt then asserts. "How we view things in 2010 is inevitably different from how we viewed them in 1972."

Well, that may be the case, although the assertion is highly debatable - even if there is a great deal of revisionism going on. But we are certainly not always doing things differently. British soldiers are still murdering people, with officers turning a blind eye, and Ministers still lie about events.

Furthermore, the Paras are still slaughtering civilians in the mistaken belief that they are being fired upon – although if only brown people in faraway places get killed it doesn't seem to matter so much.

But, most of all, the cover-ups still go on and, as Raedwald points out, there are still plenty of bent inquiry chairmen and whitewashers, obedient to the political class rather than to truth and to honour.

It is, thus, all very well Cameron apologising to the relatives and friends of the Bloody Sunday victims, but what about an apology to us, for being lumbered with a bill of £191 million to remedy the cover-up? What happened on Bloody Sunday, he says, "was both unjustified and unjustifiable." But what happened afterwards was also "unjustified and unjustifiable."

Equally "unjustified and unjustifiable" is the assertion by Gen Sir David Richards, current CGS – ranking alongside Dannatt's claims – his insistence that the Army had changed greatly over the 38 years since Bloody Sunday.

But it is just over 100 years since the Army failed so egregiously in the Boer War, following which Kipling published his poem, The Lesson. "Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, we have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good," he wrote.

Yet we are dealing with an Army which, 100 years later failed in Iraq and has since refused publicly to examine the lessons of that failure, only to repeat its mistakes in Afghanistan.

So, no Mr Dannatt, I don't think we should move on just yet. We should dwell on the errors of the past, long enough at least to learn the lessons from them, otherwise, as the Army seems so keen to do, we are doomed to repeat them, again and again and again.

Saville Report thread

And now for the Saville Report

As The Boy stands up to make a statement on the £191-million Saville Report, news comes in that two soldiers from 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment have been shot dead in separate incidents in Afghanistan. They died while on patrol in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province.

Their deaths bring the total number of UK troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 298. Two more and we have a magic round number, so we can have another media blut-fest. It may just beat the historical account of the Paras slaughtering 14 innocent civil rights demonstrators and bystanders, an event which was to rack up the intensity of the "Troubles" and cost many more lives.

It is axiomatic that crowd control requires very special skills and discipline. Putting poorly-trained troops under the command of inexperienced officers on the front line, with rifles and live ammunition, is asking for a disaster. We did not need a report costing £191 million to tell us that.

The disaster happened on 30 January 1972, so-called "Bloody Sunday", when the gung ho* 1st Para manned the line, a Regiment which has a proud history of "killing people and breaking things", for which purposes it was designed, trained and equipped.

The resultant carnage, therefore, was not the fault of the soldiers (the Army was to lose over 100 troops that year), any more than the failures in Afghanistan are the fault of individual soldiers of the line. For that, we must look to the politicians who put them there and their senior officers. Talk of prosecution of the soldiers who fired the shots is misplaced.

But, as so often when innocent people get killed, the PBI takes the shit and we pay the bills. The lawyers walk away with the dosh (in this case, several of them have "earned" millions in fees), the officers get gongs and more sewing badges and the politicians get honours and awards. Then as now, nothing really changes.

* Saville Report: Chapter 4, para 4.8: "... a force with a reputation for using excessive physical violence".

COMMENT THREAD

Moral and intellectual cowardice

It is a bit of a cop-out for the Tory Boy blog just to paraphrase Liam Fox's speech to RUSI yesterday, and then to offer a link with no analysis. But, like the rest of the Tory blogosphere, they're running frit on defence issues, not even picking up on the Great Leader's speech. It seems they can do the soft and girlie issues but can't cope with real political meat.

Talking to a journalist yesterday about the reluctance of the "right wing" blogs to deal with defence, he suggested that individual writers might be deterred by their lack of first-hand experience. They are intimidated by men in uniform, with their medals and sewing badges and tales of derring-do, and fear laying themselves open to criticism for "not being there".

I certainly had to deal with that in writing Ministry of Defeat - a whole book about the campaign in southern Iraq without ever once going as far as Basra. In that precise context, reading accounts of the great 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu (where I was also absent), I came across in Bernard Fall's book this observation:

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was lost during the brief fortnight between Novermber 25 and December 7, 1953. It was not lost in the little valley in Viet-Nam's highland jungles but in the air-conditioned map room of the French commander-in-chief. Once Giap had decided to accept trial by battle at Dien Bien Phu, it remained only for 15,000 French and 50,000 Viet-Minh troops to act out the drama in pain and blood and death.

So it was with Iraq. The British lost the battle not in the streets of al Amarah and Basra, but in the corridors of Whitehall and the claustrophobic rooms of 10 Downing Street (yes, I have been inside). "Being there", in the sense of being where the action was, would mean being in many different places (often simultaneously) and many where only insiders had access. Constructing a historical narrative, therefore, requires the use of research skills, not direct observation of events.

In the context of the military telling us that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan – one thing the limited intellects of the military brass seem to be able to understand – the "battle" is essentially political. Thus, the battle is being lost not on the streets of Kabul, Kandahar and Musa Qala, but in the corridors of Whitehall and the claustrophobic rooms of 10 Downing Street.

The refusal to follow the narrative and engage with the politics represents one of the greatest failings of the right-wing "claque". There is a moral and intellectual cowardice here – which explains the lack of response to my recent challenge. However, this is not the first time I've taken on the "claque", having written a strongly-phrased piece in September 2006 and again in January 2007.

I know the pieces were read, and the lack of comment and response is driven by a sense of shame and embarrassment – some have admitted as much to me privately. And as well they might hang their heads in shame.

But one person not afraid to get stuck in is our feisty "Dundee wifey" who vastly outshines these big, butch political bloggers who are so full of themselves. She picks up a military blog called Think Defence which has The Boy's strategy sussed. This is the "Iraq gambit", which comprises two broad elements:

1. Get the fuck out of dodge;
2. Pretend it was a victory.

In fact, while the girly-boy bloggers cower in their bunkers, it is very much the fairer sex which makes the running, with Mary Riddell telling us that, "Britain is stuck with a war it can't afford and can't win".

In a powerful turn of phrase, she writes of "Mr Fox's batsqueak of truculence" which "echoes the discredited Blairite credo that Britain should punch above its weight and beyond its purse." Both Mr Cameron and the opposition, she says, "owe the country more honesty."

Indeed they do, but as long as the fabled right-wing blogosphere is sitting on its hands, with its collective heads in a physiologically impossible position, The Boy has neither need nor incentive to do anything other than to continue on his ruinous course. But he will need more than a metal detector (pictured) to chart his way though this minefield. We've seen it all before with Iraq so some of us already know what he is doing. We will not be silent, even if the "claque" has muzzled itself.

COMMENT THREAD

Our mission is doomed

So, "Call me Dave" made a statement to the Commons yesterday, his first since his trip to Afghanistan as Cleggeron leader, supposedly spelling out his administration's approach to the ongoing conflict.

Heavily trailed as paving the way for a change in strategy, it followed extensive talks with Karzai at Chequers and meetings with US defence secretary Robert Gates and Gen David Petraeus in Downing Street – all on the back of a delegation of three Cabinet ministers being sent to Afghanistan to see the situation on the ground for themselves.

But, if there were expectations of a change in strategy, they were not fulfilled. One even wonders why The Boy actually bothered with a statement. He offered nothing new, nothing different. All he really wanted to do was emphasise why, in his view, our troops were in Afghanistan. It was all about national security. Afghanistan was not strong enough to look after its own security and without our presence it could emerge again as an al Qaida base.

What had changed then, one might ask, to which The Boy provided the answer: we needed to be clear on national security perspective.

Our route home was to put security first. We were six months in to the surge and had to give it time to take effect. We would not stay a day longer than necessary – the key was in training the Afghan security forces so that we could transfer the security responsibility, but based on facts on the ground not pre-determined timetable. Then we could come home, job done, heads held high.

And that was it. In a sparsely attended chamber there was no hint of the huge controversy which has been raging over the weekend, with the likes of Matthew Parris asserting that Cameron and Clegg "must know our mission is doomed", up against the controversial General Dannatt who believes the war can be won.

Of these two, soldier Dannatt is ostensibly better qualified - but Parris has the advantage of consistency. He has always been against the Afghan adventure, right from 2006, when he decided that the mission could not work with 3,000 or even with 30,000 men, in June 2008, when he declared we couldn't win and now, when he thinks we are simply sacrificing soldiers to keep the US on-side.

Parris is too sincere and his case too well argued for it to be dismissed as cynical, while Dannatt is too stupid for his case to be considered at all. He trots out the bog standard "exit strategy" meme, arguing that the Afghans must run their own security and "the Afghan economy must be converted as quickly as possible from one based on the illegal opium trade, to one profiting from traditional cash crops, such as wheat, saffron and pomegranates."

If pigs could fly and politicians could think coherently, the world would be a very different place, but either is about as likely as Dannatt's nostrums for Afghanistan. And then you realise that the General is offering exactly the same prospectus as "Call me Dave". The mission is indeed doomed.

COMMENT THREAD

Houghton the pathfinder?

It was The Sunday Times which broke the news today that Jock Stirrup was to be "axed" by the new administration, alongside Sir Bill Jeffrey, the permanent undersecretary at the MoD.

That the CDS should be given his marching orders comes as no surprise. He had always been regarded as a Labour man or, as a slightly partisan Col Tim Collins told the paper, "... a well-known apologist for Labour muddled thinking over Afghanistan."

Actually, Stirrup had played a key role in securing mine/IED protected vehicles in August 2006, over the heads of the Army which did its best to block the purchase, and had thus attracted the gratitude of ministers who were having to carry the can for the Army brass's indifference to casualties.

Then, with the increasingly erratic CGS, Richard Dannatt, playing the prima donna, it was necessary to ensure that there was no possibility of him stepping up to become CDS. It being the Army's turn to take the top slot, extending Stirrup's term to block Dannatt was a necessary move, giving breathing space to Dannatt's successor, David Richards who, after a short period as CGS, could rightly step up to replace Stirrup in the April of next year.

Unfortunately (for him), Stirrup's apparent favour with Labour ministers – together with an impression that he was under-performing (which indeed he was) – essentially marked his cards. Certainly, he has attracted no great support from the Army. Lt-Col Stuart Tootal, who commanded the first detachment of 1,200 UK troops into Helmand, told the BBC that he bore a share of the blame for the "chronic mismanagement" of the armed forces.

Tootal admits that, "We have a tendency to blame ministers," but, he says, "we can't ignore the role of the professional heads in the form of the CDS and PUS (permanent under-secretary), who advise our ministers on what the armed forces should look like and what they do." He claims Stirrup was forcefully advised by commanders on the ground in Helmand of the "absolute requirement" for more troops and helicopters, but was "very slow" to recognise the need to act.

This may be an additional reasonb why the new defence secretary has decided to "let him go" as early as he decently could, which will be this autumn. Ostensibly, his departure – alongside the lack-lustre Jeffrey, who never amounted to much – marks the new administration seeking to draw a line under past failures in Afghanistan, and is intended to improve the military's performance on the Afghan front line.

However, the announcement from Fox – which comes in an interview with The Sunday Times rather than as a formal statement to parliament – is inviting some rather bizarre commentary.

Patrick Mercer, the standard renta-mouth for such occasions, tells The Sunday Times that change at the top of the MoD was desperately needed. "The last regime allowed our men to go into Helmand improperly prepared, while huge sums of money were squandered on projects such as the refurbishment of the Ministry of Defence," he says.

That is the sort of partisan irrelevancy one would expect from Mercer (as if the CDS was the driver behind the MoD refurbishment), but Adam Holloway does himself no favours by remarking: "There was a tendency under the Labour government to promote 'politicians in uniform' rather than officers willing to give frank advice about the strategic drift in Afghanistan."

The we have Rear-Admiral Chris Parry saying the Stirrup's successor should "stand clear of political considerations". His view is that: "Officers have been willing to let themselves be politicised as a means of climbing up the promotion ladder."

But both the Chiefs of Defence Staff the General Staff are always "politicians in uniform". To expect their successors to be any different is fantasy. In fact, by acting early, Fox is more likely to ensure a "political" successor, as the two likely candidates for the job are David Richards and the vice-chief of the defence staff, General Sir Nicholas Houghton (pictured).

It is a little bit early for Richards to take the job as he is only just bedding in as CGS, working on undoing some of the damage done by Dannatt. Thus, Houghton, a consummate politician, is favourite to get the job.

This is the man who, according to his own testimony, was instrumental in engineering the extraction of the British Army from Basra, working to the highly political brief of: "getting out of Iraq with reputation intact, with a defendable legacy."

And that might be the best clue as to what is going on. Fox is emphasising that he wants "the best people to be in the appropriate posts," while hinting that he is looking to substantial personnel cuts in the armed forces, to help him trim budgets – which can only happen with a reduced commitment in Afghanistan.

With Houghton in post, Fox would have the ideal man to manage an expeditious retreat from theatre. He will have a man practiced in the art of lying through to teeth to protect the reputation of the British Army and in pretending that its legacy is substantial and enduring – thus allowing the new defence secretary to sharpen his axe.

Houghton the "pathfinder" will pave the way.

COMMENT THREAD

Approach to Helmand "flawed"

The Today programme has picked up on the Afghanistan series in The Times, interviewing Conservative MP Adam Holloway and Rear Admiral Chris Parry, the MoD's director-general of development, concepts and doctrine in 2006. The interview has since been reported by the Press Association and The Sun.

Parry's comments are especially interesting as he played a key role in discussions leading up to the initial deployment of troops to Helmand in 2006 and he has now admitted that the MoD's approach to the mission was "flawed".

Echoing then defence secretary John Reid's comment at the time, that he hoped the UK would leave Helmand without a shot being fired, Parry confirms that the MoD top brass were not expecting to have to fight the Taliban in the province.

"I think we had an immature approach to what is now known as counter-insurgency," says Parry. "We didn't realise the complexity and the character of the context in which we were going to fight. In fact, we didn't envisage we were going to fight."

He goes on: "I think we took too much baggage with us from previous experience from Borneo, Malaya and Northern Ireland and we hadn't really recognised that the lessons we had taken from those campaigns were valid, but they weren't sufficient for the context of Afghanistan, or indeed Iraq."

Then, for the coup de grace, Parry says: "I think at the time there was considerable senior resistance to ditching the lessons from the past and moving on to more radical and progressive ideas. The senior military at the time actually believed different things about what should be done in Afghanistan. The old doctrine, the thinking about how we conduct that sort of campaign still prevailed."

At this stage, as my readers may well imagine, this blogger's blood pressure was escalating to a dangerous level. Multi-adjectival descriptive sentences were forming, in which the word "fuckwit" could qualify as one of the mildest and most complimentary.

When I think of the shit I took from any number of commentators for daring to question the wisdom and expertise of our military "experts", who so obviously knew what they were doing ... and now we get the admission that these great experts were "immature" and that they "didn't realise the complexity and the character of the context in which we were going to fight."

However, one must take a calmer, more analytical approach – which I managed to do after walking several times round the garden, kicking the cat, slamming a few doors and only with difficulty resisting the temptation to punch the laptop keys through the machine and embed them in the table below.

Thinking back to the time, we knew that our great military geniuses like Jackson and Dannatt were basing their strategy on "memories" of Northern Ireland, but actually more so in Iraq than in Afghanistan.

It is interesting though that Parry speaks of "memories" – it was the memory rather than the actuality that was being applied. While the British military was lording it over the Septics, claiming greater knowledge of counter-insurgency though NI experience, the one thing that became very clear was that the lessons of Northern Ireland were applied neither in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In fact, as I point out in Ministry of Defeat, the lessons learned were almost completely ignored in Iraq – which makes it rather interesting that Parry, the man actually responsible for doctrine, is still claiming that Northern Ireland experience did guide strategy.

As regards Afghanistan, the very attraction of this theatre was that the Brown Jobs – having been roundly whipped by the Mahdi Army in Basra and al Amarah – were looking for a new venue where they could play with their toys, without the fuzzies getting too uppity and breaking them. Insofar as there was a strategy in the early days, it was made "on the hoof". It owed nothing to COIN and stemmed more from Rourke's Drift and the Alamo, only with more modern toys.

Once of course, the mad mullahs of the Taliban found that they too – like the Mahdi Army – were having difficulty ousting the British Army from fixed positions, they also went "asymmetric" and started using nasty things like old Soviet mines and then IEDs on an industrial scale.

It was only latterly that there was talk of Borneo and Malaya, but that was not until 2009, after Parry's time (he retired in 2008). By then, even the Septics were getting a bit dubious about British strategic wisdom and the brass were looking for something that might restore their credibility. Thus, briefly, the Far East campaigns became fashionable.

With not a great deal of jungle in Afghanistan, the brass might have been better off studying the campaigns in Aden and Cyprus, then Rhodesia and Bosnia, where land mines and IEDs were widely deployed and countermeasures were being developed. But our "immature" brass obviously had difficulty coping with more than one idea at the same time, so the lessons there went begging.

Eventually, our geniuses alighted on the military equivalent of putting men in front of vehicles with red flags, as way of dealing with IEDs, reasoning – if that is what it can be called – that the public was less concerned with the odd bod getting blown up, provided they weren't in Snatch Land Rovers, which the media might notice.

Then we got the US version of COIN, with Gen McChrystal articulating ideas about "take – hold - build", which have about as much relevance to Afghanistan as a spaghetti sandwich does to an eight-man bobsleigh. But, relieved from the responsibility of doing their own thinking by the Septics, our Brown Jobs have fallen in with a strategy which Adam Holloway complains is "fatally flawed".

This is the man who was less than impressed with the fun and games in Iraq and argues that it is time to seek deals with the hardcore Taliban leaders. Personally, I would suggest killing them – in very large numbers - and then bribing the survivors, once we have re-engineered their towns, demolished their walls and straightened their roads.

However, Holloway is on the right lines when he says, "We have to have a political settlement". For that, we need to listen to what people like Maharajakrishna Rasgotra have to say. He regards the current policy as "the march of folly", and offers his own ideas. Being a former Indian government minister, his views are neither practical nor trustworthy, but his preferred direction of travel is interesting.

Certainly, it is far more realistic than anything produced by our politicians, and far better than anything our brass have ever considered, not that that would be at all difficult. Given the revelations of late – combined with what we already knew – there are very few of our generals that we would be happy employing on road-crossing duties or as school dinner ladies.

COMMENT THREAD

A political own goal

An unannounced visit by the Cleggeron leader to Afghanistan yesterday - intended to underline the improving security situation in the country - has partially backfired. "Call me Dave" was forced to cancel a visit to the Army's Shazhad forward operating base in Helmand.

This, we are told, followed two successive mobile phone intercepts, the first referring to a possible rocket attack on a helicopter and the second, intercepted close to the base, which suggested that a VIP was flying in.

A decision was thus taken by military commanders to call off the visit. The base is in an area which was previously an insurgent stronghold and which was heavily contested in the recent Operation Moshtarak offensive in central Helmand.

Dave's Chinook was diverted to Lashkar Gah where he met some British troops for a photo-opportunity and was forced to eat a hamburger with ketchup. He was said to be disappointed that the diversion gave the impression that the security situation was not good when to all intents and purposes the opposite was the case.

So there we are ... three helicopters – to our knowledge – have been lost to RPGs – two within one month. Others, including two RAF Chinooks, have been downed by Taliban gunfire. But hey! This gives a false impression about the security situation. Why it is though we are fed such drivel and why it is that The Boy feels the need to offer himself as hostage to fortune, Heaven only knows.

Despite his fond wish that the progress can be speeded up, this is unlikely to happen. Even US Gen McChrystal is admitting that operations were not going as planned and winning support from local leaders was proving "tougher than expected". In Marja, where the US Marines have claimed early success, residents see signs that the insurgents "have regained momentum" in recent weeks.

Where the US forces, with their vastly superior resources and larger reserves of manpower are having such problems, a BBC "expert" put the task facing Cameron as: "How do you withdraw in good order without giving the impression of defeat?" But, as it stands, Dave seems determined to set himself up for a fall. Building expectations of "progress" which the armed forces cannot deliver, he is confronted with not just with the impression but the actuality of defeat.

When that happens, it will be something of a political own goal. He could have distanced himself from the failures associated with the previous administration but has accepted responsibility for achieving success in a war he did not start, does not understand and is not temperamentally equipped to resolve. "This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity," he says. "This is not a war of occupation. This is a war of obligation."

Despite a second-rate defence team, a dysfunctional military, a fragile political base and empty coffers, Cameron has still fallen into the trap of casting himself as a (reluctant) war leader. This lack of acumen could well be his undoing, the failure which defines his short tenure as prime minister.

COMMENT THREAD

The changing of the narrative

There is something interesting and profoundly important going on when, for the second day running, The Times gives over its front page to a story critical of British military efforts in Afghanistan, plus this story, this and this, making up three pages of coverage, plus another lead editorial on the subject.

The fact of the pieces and their critical line is as important as the detail of what they say – possibly more so. What we are seeing here is a changing of the narrative, or an attempt so to do. Given the low grade of defence journalism in this country, there is no expectation that the new narrative is going to be any better informed than the previous one, but at least it is different from the "underfunding" and "overstretch" mantras that have hitherto dominated the headlines.

Following on from my own piece yesterday, I'd all but forgotten this piece that I wrote in March, remarking on the power the narrative, and the difficulty in changing it.

But, in The Times attempt, at least now there is a grudging and belated recognition that there were "errors all the way down the chain of command". At last, we are getting some serious – if limited – discussion about failures in strategy, with talk of "arrogance in the field", "hubris disguised as confidence", "decisiveness trumping thoughtful caution" and the pursuit of tactical victories "sometimes to the detriment of strategic progress".

One should thus be heartened by the paper's call for "a review that takes in capability, the relationship between politics and military and the conventional wisdom of counter-insurgency", but it is precisely that which this and the rest of the British media has avoided for years, as the debate has raged on the other side of the Atlantic – recorded by our own Defence of the Realm.

And, of course, presiding over the failures in strategy in Afghanistan, from the very beginning until fairly recently, was everyone's poster child, the saintly General Dannatt. No review could take place without re-examining his role in the campaign and, when history comes to be written, his reputation will have to be heavily reconsidered. A lot of clever-dick commentators are going to have to eat humble pie, not that they ever do.

Of those, one should undoubtedly be Patrick Mercer, who has spouted more rubbish than enough, and been right at the forefront of the underfunding mantra. Yet this self-same "renta-mouth" is putting himself up for the chairmanship of the defence committee, saying of the Helmand failings: "I think there should be a very clear inquiry into why senior officers allowed this to happen."

Yet another should be James Arbuthnot, the previous chairman, who has said that if he was re-elected one of his tasks would be to investigate Afghanistan as part of a Strategic Defence Review. He says that The Times investigation would form a "very important crux of such an inquiry", yet this is the man who has consistently shown himself to be part of the problem and fatally compromised by having been a seriously inadequate procurement minister.

Yet, it is a measure of the wonderful "new politics" that the squeaky clean new parliament, given an opportunity to make a fresh start, has re-elected Arbuthnot as defence committee chairman. Committed to the status quo, and never one to pass up the opportunity to grovel to the military brass, here is a man who will ensure that the generals past and present are never brought to account, or even troubled by anything that might embarrass them. A more pathetic start, it would be hard to imagine.

But, with so many having bought into the earlier narrative, it was always going to be difficult to find anyone with clean hands. They will not be found in the military or politics and there are very few in the media, which has been entertaining itself at our expense. One of those few is Simon Jenkins who, in yesterday's Guardian argues for the complete abolition of the British military.

Given its overall incompetence, and the complete inability of the media and the political establishment to exercise any meaningful control over the bloated and useless military bureaucracy and the fantasies of its overpaid generals, it is very hard to disagree with Jenkins. His view may be rhetoric, but if it takes hold and gets the military establishment really worried, it will be no bad thing.

COMMENT THREAD

A bit bloody late

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 the lead editorial headed: "Institutional Denial".

There, we are gravely told that: "The politicians have deserved criticism about Afghanistan. An investigation by The 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 the claque 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" earlier 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?

COMMENT THREAD

Another one down

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?

COMMENT THREAD

Statements of the obvious

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?

COMMENT THREAD

A "difficult" day

Associated Press is reporting that twelve foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan yesterday in what it is calling the "deadliest day" this year.

Casualties included seven Americans, five of whom were killed in a single IED blast. Separately, a US civilian police trainer and his Nepalese security guard died in a "brazen suicide assault". One French and two Australian soldiers were killed. The nationality of the remaining two has not been specified, although the MoD is saying that no British troops were killed.

The Canadians (pictured) are counting their losses from a previous day, their total deaths now standing at 147 compared with 292 for the British and well over 1,000 for the US.

US Lt-Gen David Hurley was anxious not to overplay the significance of the numbers, telling reporters: "I think we're just seeing a hard day in theatre," he said. "There are a lot of troops in action, a lot going on at this present time, and this has just been a difficult day for us."

However, the brazen nature of the attacks has stunned observers. The American police trainer was killed when a team of three suicide bombers attacked the main gates of the police training centre in Kandahar. One bomber blew a hole in the outer wall, enabling the two others to rush inside.

US commanders are warning of more casualties as NATO forces gear up for a major operation to secure Kandahar, but the ferocity and persistence of the Taliban attacks bode ill for the continued operations.

This type of "targeted" suicide bombing is, of course, not new – but one previous appearance of the tactic should provide some warning. Contrary to popular belief, this is not confined to Muslim or even religious groups, and was seen in the late 40s and early 50s in French IndoChina, employed by the Communist Viet Minh.

Then as now, Western forces are not dealing with an "ordinary" enemy, one which would respond to the "normal" political calculus, or even extravagant casualty rates.

And nor is the optimism of ISAF forces at all reassuring. It is germane to note that, prior to its fall, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu had been the object of an unprecedented number of high level visits. Yet, as French Commander-in-Chief Gen Henri Navarre observed:

... not a single civilian or military authoritative person, including French or foreign ministers, or American generals ... ever to my knowledge, admitted any doubts before the attack on the ability of Dien Bien Phu to resist.

As before, one can rely on the premise that "everybody" can be wrong. What particularly marks that campaign was the dismissive treatment of the "amateur" general Vo Nguyen Giap, and the tendency to under-rate the capabilities of the Viet Minh. That gave the French in 1953 an uncomfortable number of "difficult" days and led to their eventual defeat.

More than fifty years later, we seem to be travelling the same path.

COMMENT THREAD

That amazing "own goal"

In the not too distant future, when the Cleggeron administration crashes and burns, one of the key stresses that will have brought it down will be the totally unforced error made by David Cameron in adopting the previous government's Afghan policy and thus locking himself in to an unwinnable war.

Quite how politically crass this move really is can be seen from two similar articles, one in The Daily Telegraph and the other in The Guardian. The theme is identified by the headline from the latter, which tells us: "Afghan police failings fuelling Taliban recruitment, say UK army chiefs," painting "a devastating picture of the corrupt and ill-disciplined local police force."

What one has to appreciate is that the role of the Afghan police is absolutely pivotal to the success or otherwise of the current strategy. Not unless or until the police are able to take the load can we – according to the agreed doctrine – even think about withdrawal. But, not only do we have the British Army cast serious doubts about whether the force is at all capable, this comes on the back of the complaints by the US Forces in the New York Times earlier this week.

Then there is another piece, this one in the Washington Post, with a US commentary which notes: "Afghanistan Police: Still Corrupt After All These Years." The WAPO narrative runs as follows:

"The hardest nut for us to crack is to build faith in the institution of the police," said Haight, the regional commander. During home searches for weapons or insurgents, he said, Afghan police often "shake down the house like criminals." In terms of training and morale, he said, the police are about five years behind the army. "We have to show them what right behavior is, to secure the people instead of being corrupt and victimizing them," he said.

This in turn elicits the comment: "It's not unreasonable to wonder why, if the culture hasn't been amenable to change after years of intensive efforts, why it ever will." But the "killer point" here is the date – 8 March 2009. More than a year ago, exactly the same things were being said that are being aired right now.

In the current Guardian piece, we get Brigadier James Cowan, commander of 11 Brigade stating that the police are "most often cited as why there is a problem and why people joined the Taliban", the problem being compounded by Taliban propaganda. Taliban fighters wore Afghan police uniforms as they stole money and possessions from innocent people at checkpoints.

Afghan security forces appear in many ways to be as much part of the problem as the solution, Cowan says, and his comments are echoed by Lt-Col Roly Walker, commander 1 Bn Grenadier Guards, with an added twist. He says the Taliban exploited grievances to "incite insurrection" but then adds that the Taliban are not the biggest obstacle to success. Rather they are "consequences of much deeper social and political grievances".

And that is very much the case, all of which stacks up to the fact that Cameron has indeed shackled himself to a policy that cannot succeed, no matter how much resource he throws at it or political capital he invests in it. If he is going through the motions, despite having told parliament (and through that the nation) that he would fully support the military, then he has the worst of all possible worlds – a failed policy for which he has accepted full responsibility.

You don't get much more crass than that. Yet, bizarrely, the Tory Boy Blog believes this is an achievement. You can see how the Tories managed to win the election so convincingly.

COMMENT THREAD

Cameron's War

Although much hailed before the event, getting information on yesterday's meeting of Cameron's national security committee is proving extraordinarily difficult. All we have so far is a very limited statement from a Downing Street spokesman, telling us that: "There were wide-ranging, intensive and productive discussions during the extended session on this, the Government's top foreign policy priority."

"The Prime Minister and the NSC," we are also told, "expressed their great admiration and support for our troops serving in Afghanistan and paid tribute to the essential contribution that they and their civilian colleagues make. The NSC will now continue its work to ensure that the UK does all it can to support the agreed Nato strategy in Afghanistan to succeed."

Separately, we have a report in The Guardian which makes the claim – attributed to officials - that Britain is putting pressure on Afghanistan to assume full responsibility for its own security as soon as possible.

If that is true – and there is no reason why it should not be – it quite possibly represents the ultimate example of hope triumphing over experience, there being any number of accounts which attest to the incompetence of Afghan security forces.

The latest of these comes in the New York Times which describes the Interior Ministry's most promising force, which has been "undercut by drug use, petty corruption and, at times, a lack of commitment in the face of the ordinary hardships and duties of uniformed life."

This piece deserves to be read in full but particularly relevant is the observation that many of the police from the force profiled were Tajik, and did not speak Pashto, southern Afghanistan's dominant language. Unsurprisingly, one of them complained: "Nobody can find a lot of information about the Taliban."

What, of course, this destroys is the facile idea that the southern, predominantly Pashtun population is ever going to accept the rule of Kabul, bolstered as it is – and has always been historically – by the northern tribes of an entirely different ethnicity.

Thus Simon Jenkins is telling us in The Guardian that Cameron should take the opportunity of the switch in Helmand from British to US control to admit the obvious and start to plan how best to leave. It is idle to pretend, he writes, that Britain's 2006 expedition to bring Helmand under the control of the Kabul regime has anything but failed.

Yet, rather than take that opportunity, the Cameron stance has been to support the last administration's policy and, as he did during the session allocated to PMQs in parliament today, commit to providing the military with "whatever they need", thereby effectively taking ownership of the conflict. It may have started off as Blair's war, then to become Brown's war, but it has now undergone a glacially smooth transition, on its way to becoming Cameron's war.

There is no obvious political reason why the Cleggeron leader should so recklessly assume responsibility for this conflict – other than, perhaps, he has been unduly influenced by today's leader in The Daily Telegraph, which intones that "tangible results" are "desperately needed" to reassure an increasingly sceptical public that the war is winnable - an outcome which only that newspaper can believe is possible.

"Providing clear and unequivocal support for the military effort would be a good start," the paper says, advice which Cameron seems to have taken, unwittingly falling into a trap from which he will find it difficult to extract himself.

As a harbinger, the significance of which it is unlikely he would understand, yesterday we learned of the death of another Danish soldier, since identified as 22-year-old Private Sophia Bruun. She was killed close to Bridzar military base in Helmand, after a Piranha armoured personnel carrier was hit by an IED.

The point that will escape Cameron is that this vehicle type was intended to be the base for the FRES utility vehicle which, given a choice, the Army would have preferred to the Mastiff and other protected vehicles. Affording the Army "unequivocal support" may prove to be unwise, given that it most often has no real idea what it really wants and, in any event, should be given what it needs rather than what it wants.

In return, however, the one thing Cameron need not expect is "tangible results", other than seeing the number of deaths climb from today's figure of 290 – with yet another Royal Marine killed by a bomb in Sangin – to 300 in the very near future. For his first performance in the PMQ slot today, he had to read out three names. Already, he has another for next week's list and soon enough he will be dealing with the torrent of media "celebrating" that macabre third century.

By then it will truly be Cameron's war. And if he makes 400, it will be the only thing he "achieves" from it.

COMMENT THREAD

You can't blame the Messenger

The Cleggeron administration has at least provided one useful service in publishing the Civil Service "rich list" – the names of the 172 senior civil servants who earn more than £150,000 a year.

Included in that number (although not exactly a civil servant) is CDS Jock Stirrup, one of 22 MoD officials earning more than £150,000. He is currently on the pay band £240,000 - £249,999. This, of course, does not include his perks which include full-time servants, limousine and chauffeur provided at public expense.

On current performance, however, Stirrup is being paid probably ten times what he is worth, not least as a greater part of his responsibility – the campaign in Helmand - has just been removed and handed to a US general, Maj Gen Richard Mills, of the USMC.

Whether that will lead to any improvement in the conduct of the campaign is moot, although given the objective declared by British theatre spokesman Maj Gen Gordon Messenger, it is unlikely that it could make things worse.

Messenger's view of how to win, as expressed to the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, comes straight out of the Janet & John Book of Counterinsurgency (budget edition). It is all about providing security, he says, which is the "bedrock" on which a peaceful Afghanistan would be built. "Ultimately," he prattles, "the key to this is the allegiance of the population. When the population demonstrate their allegiance to the Afghan government, we will have done our job."

The funny thing is, you could have given this man a job with US public affairs in Vietnam in the 1960s and he would have been saying much the same things. But, with a dismal and highly-overpaid boss like Stirrup, even now you can't blame the Messenger.

COMMENT THREAD

Going through the motions

The resignation of David Laws would be big news at any time, but the homosexual relationship gives it an extra edge. The saga of "poofters in power" – as it was characterised by one of my correspondents – has a special fascination in the Westminster village, which is far more interested in who is buggering whom than it is the general proposition that the population as a whole is being right royally buggered by the political classes.

Needless to say, the extravagant coverage being given to the affairs of Mr Laws has pushed other issues further down the agenda and excluded other items completely, not least by the absurd proposition that the low-grade-Laws will somehow "bounce back" once this bit of local difficulty has been quietly forgotten.

One of those issues which has doubtless got less coverage than it might is the vexed matter of Afghanistan. But then the unnecessary slaughter of (mainly) heterosexual young males through the cupidity, incompetence and manic stupidity of our political classes – willingly aided and abetted by the military itself - is of very little importance compared with the weighty matters of state to which the likes of Mr Iain Dale wish to draw our attention.

Nevertheless, some coverage has survived as, it appears, "Call me Dave" is this week convening a "secret summit" of military experts, ministers and Tory MPs on the war in Afghanistan. It is to be held at Chequers and will also be attended by members of the new National Security Council, including NickNick, Hague and little Georgie Osborne.

Also in attendance though will be (or so we are told) Conservative MP Adam Holloway, a former soldier who served in Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He has publicly suggested that the mission is on the brink of failure, and warned that the heavy presence of coalition troops is "aggravating the problem" in the area.

Another "outsider" will be Rory Stewart, a new Tory MP and former British Army officer, described as having "extensive experience of the conflict". Although rather too full of himself for some tastes, he too has voiced his concern about the mission, suggesting it is doomed, and has publicly questioned the government's key argument for Britain's continuing involvement in Afghanistan - that it reduces the terrorism threat in Britain - describing it as "ridiculous".

Coincidentally (not) we have seen in the media a raft of what could loosely be called "strategy" pieces, the latest being from Denis MacShane in The Observer, who repeats an earlier call to bring the troops home.

The MacShane thesis is that our soldiers have shed enough blood and the strategy of sending patrols out to be shot at by the Taliban is needlessly costing the lives of British troops. Thus, he argues that it is "time to stop the blood sacrifice of our young soldiers in Afghanistan," noting that Britain has no general, no "master of strategy" with the 21st-century vision to stop the blood-letting as officers and men are sent as IED fodder.

War is too important to be left to generals, he says, then asserting – almost certainly correctly – that ministers past and present have flinched from thinking strategically. Instead, far too much has been left to the generals. Says MacShane:

Every six months, a new commander is sent from London to head the fighting soldiers in Afghanistan. These brigadiers rotate, so that, instead of fighting one six-year war, we have fought 12 six-month wars, so that future red tabs can punch their tickets. The can-do, will-do power-point style of the British army impresses politicians, and every visiting minister and journalist is in awe of these tough, sun-burnt, dedicated professionals.

It is hard to say that they and their generals are wrong, but the time has come to put parliament and elected ministers in charge. The pro-war tabloids say they are backing our boys. They are not: they are backing the generals. Officers and men ready to criticise the campaign have no voice.

The problem with that line is that putting "elected ministers" in charge means giving 13th Century Fox and William Hague their head. Yet nothing they have so far offered gives any confidence that things will be better than they were under Labour.

On the other hand, leaving the campaign to generals means more of the same, with precious little being done about the "blood sacrifice". This is largely regarded as tolerable - and necessary to keep the new kit coming and the funds flowing. After all, if the Brass was not allowing the Taliban to spread a sample of its finest in pieces across the plains and hills of Helmand, politicians like "Call me Dave" might actually start asking what the Army is for – and that would never do.

Interestingly, Charles Moore attempted that on Saturday – sort of. Along the way, he remarks that "the current truth" is that Britain's effort in Afghanistan is not working.

But the Grand Charles, who so often dines with the great and the good that he has long lost touch with reality, believes the failure arises because it (the effort) "is not granted political, developmental or military freedom of manoeuvre."

His answer is to ditch Stirrup (who has been a disappointment, not least as one of the few senior officers with any experience of counterinsurgency) and appoint a new CDS. "One hopes that rumours that Mr Cameron would rather appoint a soldier fresh for the task are true," says Charles. This man, though, is still locked in the claustrophobically narrow world of the military perspective, looking for a British military figure akin to General David Petraeus who can lead our forces to the promised land. He will search in vain ... this is not a military problem.

At least MacShane is thinking in geopolitical terms, arguing that "diplomats and development aid should be redirected to Pakistan and India, as well as to China and Iran, to remove the widespread feeling among Muslim communities that this is Kipling's west again seeking to control the lives of people whose customs and needs they do not understand." And thus does he focus on the "burning issue of Kashmir", which is one of the keys which will unlock the Afghan conflict.

The one thing that the Tories - and especially the Grand High Tories like Charles Moore - don't do though is think. Anyone who ever attempts such a perilous process is quickly exorcised from the party ranks. And that is why you have Con Coughlin noting that they have already sold the pass, with an analysis piece headed: "We will never defeat the Taliban if they think we're going home".

Politicians both sides of the Atlantic, says Coughlin, are desperate to escape from the quagmire that is Afghanistan. Yet paradoxically, the only way we stand a chance of extricating ourselves is by sending a clear and unequivocal message that we are going to stay the course, he writes.

Well, we can do that but, frankly, no one would believe it, least of all the Taliban. In that sense, Liam Fox, in saying that he wants to speed up the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, is only articulating the common objective. The question really is the terms – whether we accept humiliating defeat barely dressed up as victory, as we did in Iraq, or whether we hold out and engineer a more plausible fig-leaf to cover our humiliating defeat.

When one looks at today's newspapers, however – and follows through with the TV news if one is mad enough to do so – the over-riding impression is that no-one really gives a damn. We go though the ritual wailing and rending of clothes as body parts are returned in flag-bedecked coffins borne by highly polished limousines but you can see that the real interest is in the "poofters in power" soap opera. If we declared "victory" tomorrow and walked out the next day, few would even notice and fewer still would argue the toss.

Coughlin says we are giving "the unfortunate impression that the West is rapidly losing its stomach for the fight." In fact we lost it years ago and all we are doing is going through the motions.

Tragically, we will have to go through those motions for a while longer, pretending we are serious about fighting this war. That will last for as long as it takes for "Call me Dave" to get round to making some meaningless but profound statements, all to save some notional "face" and make it look as if he is in charge - although in actuality, he will be doing whatever Mr Obama tells him to do.

It is interesting how wars are often much easier to start than they are to stop, and this one is no different. The "blood sacrifice" will have to continue because no one knows how to stop it more quickly, or cares enough to try. But then, in the grander scheme of things, a few more body parts in a few more coffins won't make any difference and it is clearly not worth any great effort trying to safe a few lives. The show must go on, doncha know.

COMMENT THREAD

So where are they?

A coroner has said there has been an "unacceptable level of mortality" among bomb disposal experts working in Afghanistan.

Coroner Stuart Fisher made the comments as he returned a verdict of unlawful killing at an inquest in Lincoln into the death of Captain Daniel Shepherd. Capt Shepherd was killed as he defused an improvised explosive device by hand in Helmand province in July 2009. The coroner said it was critical that remote devices were used on bombs.

Well, blow me down with a feather! That's exactly what I said in July 2009, just after Capt Sheherd's death was reported. And if I can see it, from my desk in Bradford, and a Coroner – on hearing expert evidence – can see it (and recommend it), where are all these military experts and on-the-spot defence correspondents? Why couldn't they see it?

Further, I very much doubt whether the Coroner had the Buffalo in mind, as a local coroner would know nothing of this equipment unless he had been told about it. And the one thing the Army seems to be extremely good at during inquests is keeping quiet about the availability of life-saving equipment, and the lethal inadequacies of its current systems and procedures.

There is also always going to be the smart-alec who will say that the Buffalo cannot solve every problem. In fact, there seems to be a remarkable sub-strain of military stupidity which asserts that, because one piece of equipment cannot resolve all problems, it should be used for none at all.

But the fact is that the Buffalo has a proven record in saving lives – it is ideal for investigating suspect IEDs which might otherwise kill bomb disposal operators. We should have ordered them in 2005 (or earlier). The Army didn't, and it wasn't until November 2008 that an order was finally placed.

But that was 18 months ago. In the interim, we have heard nothing, and there is little indication of when these life-saving machines are going to go into service. Where are they, and how long is it going to take to get them into action?

And why aren't all these clever, knowledgeable defence correspondents agitating for their introduction, or are they still waiting for their Army minders to tell them what to think? This kit has been around, in US hands, since 2003 ... for SEVEN years. How long is it going to take before some bright journo actually notices that we are still using men with metal detectors to do the job that should be done with machines?

COMMENT THREAD

Dog should eat dog

Rather amusingly, The Guardian is letting Monbiot off his leash to have a go at The Times, telling the world that its "exclusive" tale on EU climate targets is "gibberish".

Although Moonbat is largely a free agent, there must be an element of policy involved here, as most newspaper editors are reluctant to allow attacks on other journals. The view is taken that "dog shall not eat dog" in an informal arrangement that binds together the media as a self-serving (and mutually supporting) club.

In that sense, it is good to see Moonbat break ranks – even if one cannot agree with all he writes. Climate change aside, another good place to start would be the defence coverage, breaking into the low-grade and ill-informed coverage that we see all too often. And, once again, The Times would be a suitable target, with a story that could easily qualify as "gibberish".

The headline claim of this story – which sounds so terribly plausible – is that the MoD "has spent £207 million on an armoured vehicle that has yet to leave the drawing board, despite seven years of development." This, it tells us, is the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) which "was supposed to provide soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with better protection against roadside bombs but its development has dragged on and costs have continued to rise."

Here one must admire the skill of the journalist, David Robertson, in getting so many things wrong in such a short passage. Firstly, while the MoD might have spent £207 million on FRES, the very name should warn the unwary journalist to be careful.

The key is in the last letter of the acronym, the "S", standing for "system". FRES is not an armoured vehicle, but a system – one which is extremely complex, sophisticated and innovative. Agree with it or not, the overall procurement budget is provisionally set at £16 billion and, for what is supposed to be part of a revolution in military affairs, the sum of £207 million so far spent is relatively modest.

Secondly, FRES vehicles were never intended to give protection against roadside bombs – neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan. The whole concept was of a lightly armoured, air-portable force which relied on advanced sensors and stand-off weapons to neutralise threats, rather than weight of armour. In fact, it is largely the IED which has so far scuppered the FRES concept.

So keen is The Times to develop its theme of "waste", however, that it then drags in the mine and IED resistant Mastiffs and Ridgebacks, noting that the MoD has spent more than £1 billion on new armoured vehicles such as these, but "these are seen as temporary solutions and FRES was meant to be the long-term answer and become the backbone of the Army’s vehicle fleet."

This is an issue we have rehearsed many times – for instance here - and while it is true that the Army originally sought to make the mine protected and FRES vehicles an either/or issue, they have emerged as entirely separate categories, each with their own distinct operational niches. The Times is offering a distorted and incorrect view.

Interestingly, the paper then goes to the MoD for a view on FRES and then, separately, to 13th Century Fox, as if he was still a member of the opposition. Dr Fox has been firmly in favour of FRES – wanting it introduced more quickly – so he tells us that: "The whole FRES programme is just another example of a procurement programme going over time and over budget. This is yet another reason why the procurement process needs radical reform that only a new government can provide."

And there lies the final inadequacy of a wholly inadequate piece. Where there are indeed problems with FRES, these are not primarily procurement failures. There are serious definitional problems, which will continue as the Army consistently fails to work out what equipment it really needs. If Dr Fox does not understand that – and he mostly doesn't – only the ignorance of The Times is going to get him off the hook.

Unfortunately, on that he can almost certainly rely – unless the media grow some and start picking apart some of the garbage such as this piece represents.

COMMENT THREAD

Thirteenth Century Fox

Politically, for the period that British troops remain in Afghanistan, it is going to be an interesting time. We are going to see a Conservative defence team, which in opposition specialised in low-grade sniping, now exposed to its own medicine, as unhappy events unfold.

What would have been a classic example of this is the resignation today of Colonel Bob Seddon, the principal ammunition technical officer of the Royal Logistics Corps. He has decided to call it a day over his concerns that cuts have left his team - which deals with the threat of IEDs in Afghanistan – "overstretched and undermanned".

Pre-election, then shadow defence secretary Liam Fox would have had a field day, condemning the inadequacies of the government. Now he represents the government, however, Fox is having to promise to remedy the inadequacies of his predecessors. He is now, effectively, on notice, and further problems with ATO shortages will, in due course, be laid at his door.

This, of course, is a game Fox cannot win. There will always be deficiencies emerging somewhere in the order of battle as our forces continue to engage with a relentless enemy. Of those deficiencies, Fox will have little direct knowledge – until they are brought to his attention – but, having been so keen to hold his predecessor responsible for every defect, will now find himself similarly in the hot seat.

So far, Fox has not made a good start of it, having incurred the wrath of the Afghan government during a weekend visit, after describing Afghanistan as a "broken 13th-century country". A senior Afghan government source said: "His view appears to be that Afghanistan has not changed since the 13th century and it implies that Afghanistan is a tribal and medieval society."

If that is indeed Fox's view, it says little for his broader understanding of the politics of the region, but this should come as no surprise. On this and many other things, he shows every indication of having learned absolutely nothing during his period in waiting.

From his privileged position as defence shadow, Fox has had every opportunity to explore the Afghan crisis at length and, had his understanding developed at all, he would undoubtedly be thinking along the lines of Denis MacShane, one of the few to understand the malign role of India in the conflict.

"We cannot keep on sending British soldiers to die in the will-'o-the-wisp search for an ultimate military victory," says MacShane. "Instead of warcraft we need statecraft and that must involve a stronger relationship with Pakistan. There has been much talk about Pakistan and the solution to Afghanistan. But there will be no solution in Pakistan until India changes its strategic approach in the area."

Alongside foreign secretary William Hague, however, the Conservative leadership – MacShane asserts – is totally India-obsessed, which leaves Fox's thinking undeveloped and superficial.

And, if his strategic thinking is lacking, so too is his response to local issues such as perceived shortages. Tonight's Panorama documentary may be a case in point, where Christina Schmid, widow of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, complains that her husband, who was killed by an IED in Sangin, was "flaking" with exhaustion on the day he died because of demands being made on him and his elite team due to staff shortages.

Taking them at face value, Fox has no choice but to respond to such complaints by promising to make good the shortages. But, had he been more conscientious in his research, he might have learned that there were alternative and less labour-intensive way of doing things, than currently undertaken by the military, which could square the circle – providing better military effect at less cost and loss of life.

Crucially though, where over the weekend there emerged what appeared to be a split between Fox and development secretary Andrew Mitchell, a more rational approach by Fox could have had the two ministers singing from the same hymn sheet.

The essential issue here is that, for many of the intractable military problems in the British area of operations, there are no pure military solutions. With such solutions are being sought, in vain, this gave Fox the opening to offer alternatives, such as the tried and tested engineering solutions which have served others so well.

Such an approach would have put Fox on the same wavelength as Mitchell, but instead has him creating his own hostages to fortune, with his current promise that the new government will "do everything we can to ensure that, whatever you are asked to do, you are properly, fully equipped to do so, to maximise your chance of success and minimise the risk to you."

That is a promise which Fox cannot keep – it will always be the case that there could have been something more which could have been done while, on the other hand, nothing Fox has in mind by way of strategy would offer any chance of success. He has already squandered multiple opportunities, to the extent that history has perhaps already marked Thirteenth Century Fox down for failure, before he has even got properly into gear.

COMMENT THREAD