http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum This is an XML content feed of; Military Families Support Group : Last 10 Posts Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:28:40 UT Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:24:25 UT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 8.01 30 www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/RSS_topic_feed.asp http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_images/web_wiz_forums.gif http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=589&PID=7070#7070 Author: Rita
Subject: Phillip and Sue's legacy.
Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 11:24am

Yes, well done Sue. It's often the parents who will not give up when they challenge what they see as shortcomings. In Northern Ireland, helicopters were used in areas where there was the danger of IEDs on roads. It was due to the Labour government trying to cover up the lack of helicopters in Afghanistan/Iraq (and those 8 chinooks sitting uselessly in a hangar for years due to MOD procurement cockup) that so many brave soldiers have lost their lives in snatch landrovers.
    

Edited by Rita - Today at 11:25am]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:24:25 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=589&PID=7070#7070 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=373&PID=7069#7069 Author: Elaine
Subject: Military Inquest news & verdicts.
Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 8:35am

TA man died in cliff crash | Daily Mirror, London (UK), Jul 24, 2010 |

A VOLUNTEER soldier died in a 25mph paragliding accident just weeks after getting the all-clear from cancer.

Novice Andrew Filler, 51, was on a training course in Morocco when he lost control and veered into a cliff face, an inquest heard yesterday.

TA soldier Mr Filler, an electrical engineer from Newport Pagnell, Bucks, had recently recovered from mouth cancer.

Coroner Rodney Corner said: "We will never know what caused him to come so close to the rock face."
Verdict: Misadventure.
    

Edited by Elaine - Today at 8:35am]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:35:09 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=373&PID=7069#7069 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=373&PID=7068#7068 Author: Elaine
Subject: Military Inquest news & verdicts.
Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 8:28am

Inquest hears Wirral soldier died after traffic accident in Kenya - 30th July 2010


A SOLDIER from Wirral died from multiple injuries after the vehicle he was driving collided with a van while he was on duty in Kenya.

Lance Corporal Terik Lines, 27, from Birkenhead, was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident, which occured on the morning of December 4, 2008.

Coroner’s officer Arthur Flower told an inquest at Wallasey Town Hall that Mr Lines, a member of the Royal Engineers, was driving an armed Toyota Hilux twin-cab vehicle along the Nanyuki to Doldol Road.

Also on board were two civilians who Mr Lines had been assigned to escort to their place of work.

The court heard that Mr Lines attempted to overtake a Mitsubishi van.

The van driver had indicated to turn right, but decided not to after looking in the side mirror and saw Mr Lines' vehicle, which collided with the back of the van, left the road and ended up in a ditch.

Mr Lines' body was repatriated to England where a postmortem conducted by Dr Nicholas Hunt at the Sir John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford concluded death was due to multiple injuries.

An investigation of the vehicle found no faults that could have contributed to the collision. Mr Lines and his passengers had been wearing seatbelts at the time of the collision.

Recording a narrative verdict, coroner Christopher Johnson said: “The deceased died as the result of injuries sustained when the military vehicle he was driving collided with the vehicle he was attempting to overtake and left the road.”

A narrative verdict is one in which the coroner simply records the circumstances surrounding the death. ]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:28:21 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=373&PID=7068#7068 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7067#7067 Author: Elaine
Subject: Daily News
Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 7:50am

Iraq intelligence 'not very substantial' says Prescott

The intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat was not "very substantial", former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott has said.

He told the Iraq inquiry he was "nervous" about the intelligence being presented in 2002 - some of which he said was based on "tittle-tattle".

However, he said he did not have the knowledge to challenge the assessments.

Nevertheless, he defended the military action taken as "legal" and said he would take the same decision again.

Lord Prescott, deputy prime minister between 1997 and 2007, is the last senior former Labour minister to be giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the war.
'Sympathies'

The inquiry is looking at the UK's role in the build-up to the war and the handling of its aftermath, and is expected to publish its report around the end of the year.

In an interview in December, Lord Prescott expressed some doubts about the war.

However, he told the inquiry that MPs had backed the action and that "democratic accountability had been satisfied".

While former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had a "difficult decision" to make before deciding the war was legal, he said he accepted the judgement that military action was justified on basis of existing UN disarmament resolutions.

While it was "fashionable" to criticise Tony Blair for taking the UK to war, he said the former prime minister had "agonised" over the death of every British soldier.

In his opening statement, he expressed his "deepest sympathies" to the relatives of the 179 British service personnel killed in Iraq.

Lord Prescott, the final witness in the current round of public hearings, said he attended 23 out of 28 Cabinet meetings which discussed UK policy towards Iraq as well as holding a number of private meetings with Mr Blair.
Intelligence doubts

Asked about the intelligence shown to ministers about Iraq in 2002, Mr Prescott said had "no evidence" it was wrong but admitted he was a "little bit nervous about the conclusions on what I seemed to think was pretty limited intelligence".

I got the feeling that it was not very substantial”

"When I kept reading them, I kept thinking to myself, 'is this intelligence?", he said.

Describing it as "basically what you have heard somewhere and what somebody else has told somebody", he suggested the conclusions drawn on the back of it "were a little ahead" of the evidence.

"So I got the feeling it wasn't very substantial," he said.

With hindsight, he said recommendations made by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) "were frankly wrong and built too much on a little information".

"That was my impression at the time but, you know, I just thought 'well this is the intelligence document, this is what you have'.

"It seems robust but not enough to justify to that. Certainly what they do in intelligence is a bit of tittle-tattle here and a bit more information there."

However, he said he was certain that Saddam Hussein presented a real threat to regional security as he had attacked both Kuwait and Iran in recent years.
'Maintaining unity'

He said the UK's "priority" was to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis and suggested it was a "real achievement" for Tony Blair to persuade the US to try and get UN support for action against Iraq.

But he said US policy towards Iraq had been one of regime change since the Clinton presidency and the Bush administration did not want to be "diverted" from this course by diplomatic negotiations.

From conversations with former US Vice President Dick Cheney - who he described as a "hard-liner" - he said he got the impression Iraq was "unfinished business".

He described UK-led efforts to get a second UN resolution in early 2003 specifically authorising military action as "absolutely critical".

Asked about Cabinet discussions in the run-up to the war, he said he saw his job to "maintain unity" over the issue, suggesting that Labour was haunted by internal splits in the party in the 1970s and 1980s.

"There was a desire to maintain unity. Iraq could have split it if the Cabinet had said no, no no."

Ministers had to decide whether "to stay in or get out" and with the exception of Robin Cook and Clare Short - who both ultimately resigned - he said his colleagues had clearly reconciled any reservations they may have had.

Lord Prescott's appearance was the final scheduled public hearing, but inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said witnesses could be recalled in the autumn if the committee felt the need to clear up "conflicts or gaps in the evidence".

Sir John also said his five-member panel planned to visit Iraq in the autumn to hear "Iraqi perspectives" and see first-hand the consequences of British troops' six-year presence in the country.
    

Edited by Elaine - Today at 7:53am]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:50:35 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7067#7067 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7066#7066 Author: Elaine
Subject: Daily News
Posted: 31 Jul 2010 at 7:33am

America's deadliest month yet: As three more U.S. soldiers are killed in Afghanistan the death toll for July stands at 63

By David Gardner

July became the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nine-year Afghanistan War today following the deaths of another three soldiers in two separate bomb blasts.

The new casualties took the death toll to 63, three more than were killed in June.

News of the latest grim milestone came as British and Afghan troops launched a new offensive today in the Sayedebad area of Helmans in southern Afghanistan to deny insurgents a base from which to launch attacks.
U.S. soldiers stand guard as a medical helicopter arrives to evacuate a soldier

On alert: U.S. troops stand guard today as a helicopter arrives to evacuate an injured soldier. July became the deadliest month for the U.S. in Afghanistan today following the deaths of another three soldiers

Few details were available about the three Americans who died in the south of Afghanistan today. Their families were still being contacted.

The fatalities bring the number of U.S. dead in Afghanistan to 1,976.

A total of 325 British troops have died since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.


More...

    * Hundreds of British troops launch Operation Black Prince in fresh surge to clear Taliban

The American death tally over the last month included two sailors who went missing from their base outside Kabul last week.

The bodies of Petty Officer Justin McNeley and Petty Officer Jarod Newlove were both found this week, days after the Taliban claimed to be holding one of the men captive.

The Taliban has since offered no explanation for the deaths.

The discovery of Newlove's body only deepened the mystery of the men's disappearance nearly 60 miles from their base in Kabul.

An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remain at a loss to explain what two junior enlisted men in non-combat jobs were doing driving alone when in the Taliban stronghold of Logar - much of which is not under government control.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1298994/As-3-US-soldiers-killed-Afghanistan-July-death-toll-stands-63.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0vEsoutWO
]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:33:28 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7066#7066 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7065#7065 Author: Elaine
Subject: Daily News
Posted: 30 Jul 2010 at 7:36am


A Defence Policy and Business news article

29 Jul 10

Her Majesty The Queen has approved the appointment of General Sir Peter Wall as the new Chief of the General Staff, it has been announced today, Thursday 29 July 2010.

General Wall will take over from the current Chief of the General Staff, General Sir David Richards, in September this year.

Lieutenant General Sir Nick Parker, currently Deputy Commander International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan, will take over from General Wall as Commander-in-Chief Land Forces, in the rank of General, in October this year.

The Secretary of State for Defence, Dr Liam Fox, said:

    "I'm absolutely delighted with both of these appointments. We're very lucky to have men of such high calibre at this time."

General Sir Peter Wall KCB CBE ADC Gen

General Sir Peter Wall (Late Corps of Royal Engineers) is currently Commander-in-Chief Land Forces.

Peter Wall was commissioned into the Royal Engineers (RE) in 1974 then read Engineering at Cambridge. His early service was spent in Belize and Rhodesia, in 'Cold War' Germany, as a platoon instructor at Sandhurst, and in Hong Kong.

He has commanded 9 Parachute Squadron RE, 32 Engineer Regiment in Hohne - including time in Bosnia, 16 Air Assault Brigade in the UK, the Joint Force Headquarters, and 1st (UK) Armoured Division in Iraq and Germany.

Staff posts have included Chief of Staff of 5 Airborne Brigade, a Military Adviser post in MOD, Project Manager in Abbey Wood, Chief of Staff of the UK National Contingent HQ for Op TELIC 1, and Deputy Chief of Joint Operations (Ops) in the Permanent Joint Headquarters.

In July 2009 he moved from Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations) in MOD to become Commander-in-Chief Land Forces in Wilton.

He is Chief Royal Engineer and president of Army rugby, Association Football, modern pentathlon and sport parachuting. Married to Fiona, they have two teenage sons, Alexander and Archie. He follows most sports and plays occasional games of golf and village cricket.
    
    

Edited by Elaine - Yesterday at 7:37am]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:36:43 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7065#7065 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7064#7064 Author: Elaine
Subject: Snatch Land Rovers
Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 11:26pm


Tony Blair brought military close to seizing up, says ex-army chief

Former PM bounced military into deploying large numbers of British troops to Afghanistan while they were facing a growing insurgency in Iraq, Chilcot inquiry told

    
    * Richard Norton-Taylor
    * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 July 2010 22.34 BST
   

Chief of the General Staff Sir Dannatt speaks to the media outside the MOD in London. General Sir ­Richard Dannatt said he only heard of the UK’s lead role in Helmand when Blair announced it at a 2004 summit.
Tony Blair bounced military commanders into deploying large numbers of British troops to Afghanistan while they were facing a growing insurgency in Iraq, leaving the army close to "seizing up", the Chilcot inquiry was told today.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, former head of the army, painted a disturbing picture at the top of Britain's military of an overstretched army near to breaking point in "a perfect storm".

He described how he heard of Blair's announcement at a Nato summit in June 2004 that he had committed British troops to taking the lead in Nato-led operations in Helmand province , southern Afghanistan, from 2006. Dannatt, commanding Nato troops in Germany at the time, told the Chilcot inquiry: "I was totally unaware. 'Where did that come from?' was my feeling at the time."

The decision to send British UK troops to Helmand was "reasonable" when it was taken in 2004, he said. However, the situation had changed by 2006 when security in southern Iraq had deteriorated.

British military commanders failed to reconsider in late 2005 and early 2006 whether it was still right to become more heavily committed in Helmand. "We accepted it as a policy decision. Maybe that was an error," Dannatt said.

He told the inquiry he was never invited to address the cabinet or a cabinet committee, and only had a single one-to-one meeting with Blair in his last month as prime minister. Dannatt confirmed he believed Britain's military role in Afghanistan was more important than in Iraq which he described as "something that we were doing because it was decided that was the right thing to do".

Committed by Blair to future fight in Afghanistan, British troops were pulled out of southern Iraq as quickly as possible in a move criticised by the US and widely recognised as damaging to the British army's reputation. "If Iraq was the only show in town, we probably could have increased [the number of troops there ] but of course we couldn't. We had already decided to reinforce Afghanistan," said Dannatt.

The link between the two operations was emphasised by General Sir Mike Jackson, Dannatt's predecessor, who also gave evidence. More British troops could have been deployed in Afghanistan had more been withdrawn from Iraq, Jackson told the inquiry. "It was not open to us to put our hands up," he added, referring to Dannatt's suggestion that military chiefs should have reconsidered Blair's decision to commit thousands of British troops to Afghanistan.

British military commanders, and former ministers, now admit that British troops suffered the worse of both worlds – too few were deployed for the task in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dannatt told the inquiry that the military covenant – setting out the nation's obligations to the armed forces – had been getting "progressively out of balance" in terms of pay, conditions, accommodation and equipment, he told the inquiry. He warned publicly – first in an interview in the Guardian shortly after he became head of the army in 2006 – had been "running hot".

He continued: "You can run hot when you are in balance and there is enough oil sloshing around the engine to keep it going. When the oil is thin, or not in sufficient quantity, the engine runs the risk of seizing up … I think we were getting quite close to a seizing-up moment in 2006."

Dannatt continued: "We could see that perfect storm coming to fruition in about the middle of 2006 and I would contend that it did."

He said he warned Des Brown, defence secretary at the time, that pressures on the army was so great and morale so fragile that the prospect of more and more people leaving the force would be "akin to going over a cliff edge". He blamed delays in replacing the much criticised Snatch Land Rover, vulnerable to roadside bombs on "deficiency in leadership and energy".
]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:26:19 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7064#7064 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7063#7063 Author: Elaine
Subject: Snatch Land Rovers
Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 9:15am

EU Referendum:-

Watching three days-worth of oral evidence at the Chilcot inquiry on the Iraq war is not for the faint-hearted, but it is better watching the video over the internet than being there.

The reason for so doing is to follow the strains of evidence related to the Snatch Land Rover and especially relevant was Tuesday's evidence from Lt Gen Sir Robert Fulton, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Equipment Capability) from 2003 to 2006, and his successor, Lt Gen Andrew Figgures. He held the post from 2006 to 2009.

I write this with some diffidence, but am bolstered by the comments of a contact with whom I have been working these many years. He articulated by own impressions – that these two senior generals, when it comes to protected vehicles and IEDs, are extraordinarily ignorant. If you have the time, watch the performance of Fulton (pictured). It is lamentable.

But with Dannatt yesterday, if you put the narrative together, from the evidence, you come inescapably to the conclusion that the Army blew it. When it came to protecting troops from IEDs, as Dannatt himself says, "It remains unsatisfactory that it is only now that we have closed with the issue ... We worked round the problem, we didn't actually confront the problem."

We also get from Dannatt some extraordinary claims about the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES). The man actually tells us that this had originally been envisaged in 2002 as a "short to medium term requirement" with the first vehicles to enter service in 2007.

Once again, Dannatt betrays his own ignorance. It may be difficult to understand that the professional head of the Army can be completely out of touch but, like politicians, senior officers also live in their "bubbles", completely divorced from the real world.

One of the reasons why the Israeli Army was so successful is that it was largely staffed by reserve officers, who had real jobs outside the Army. British Generals, with their Army mansions, their servants, chauffeur-driven limousines, and deferential staff, are dangerously insulated from reality. They really are terrifyingly out of touch.

Even then, if Dannatt really believed that FRES was going to be operational by 2007, then he is worse than ignorant. He displays a naivety of almost staggering proportions, neglecting as he does the last word of the acronym: "system".

FRES is what the US was calling FCS, the Future Combat System. It always was going to be complex and it was always much, much more than a vehicle replacement programme. It was to be a whole new way of fighting, part of the revolution in military affairs. It was to redefine military operations in the post-Cold War era.

Yet Dannatt claims he was "horrified" to learn in 2005 that the project had grown in cost and sophistication, with the delivery date put back to between 2015 and 2018. If he really expected otherwise and was at all surprised, then one really must wonder where he was ... to which monastery he had retired.

The thing is that even I was writing about FRES in 2004. Yesterday six years ago to the day, I wrote my first piece on the system, following up today, six years ago, with another piece. Don't take my word for it. Look at it, on the record. Six years ago, on 29 July 2004, I wrote:

    ... the government is preparing to sink around £6 billion into buying 900 vehicles, with an estimated budget for the total costs of ownership over the expected 30-year service life of almost £50 billion. That is a staggering £6.7 million average cost to buy each vehicle and an unbelievable life-time cost per vehicle – yes, each vehicle - of £55.5 million. To say that it would be cheaper to drive our troops into battle in a fleet of top-of-the-range Rolls-Royces hardly begins to illustrate the extravagance.

If I was writing that sort of thing then, how can Dannatt claim that he learned only a year later that, "the project had grown in cost and sophistication"? For that to be true, he must have been on another planet, or tucked away in that monastery.

If we did not know him better, we might think he is taking us for fools. In reality, the man has by now convinced himself that what he believes to be the truth is the truth. There are people like that. He is one of them. And the media, which has never followed FRES properly, nor understood it - any more than has the likes of Dannatt - allows him to get away with it. The journalists currently reporting on the issue have neither understanding nor history.

With Dannatt's evidence though, with Fulton, Figgures, and Jackson who also gave evidence yesterday, there can be no doubt that the MoD held off acquiring protected vehicles to protect the funding for FRES. There can also be no doubt that it took the politicians to push the military into acquiring the Mastiff.

Yet the journalists are completely misreading events. Both The Guardian and The Daily Mail are at it as well. They are inverting the truth with their narrative that the Army was warning ministers about vehicle deficiencies. But the Army was not. The minsters were kicking the Army, telling it to get protected vehicles ordered.

And, as a final twist, we learn from Fulton, that the military already had a replacement for the Snatch lined up - the Vector. In their minds, they did not need anything else when they already had something in mind. Left to themselves, Vector would have gone into Iraq as well as Afghanistan. That was the original plan. Even more would have died than actually did, had the Army been allowed to run the show.

The problem is, does anyone care – do they care enough to get it right, or is everyone seemingly content that a completely distorted view of history should prevail?
]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:15:00 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7063#7063 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7062#7062 Author: Elaine
Subject: Daily News
Posted: 28 Jul 2010 at 9:09pm

Army came close to 'seizing up'
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The former head of the British Army has said that UK forces were close to seizing up with the pressure of conducting operations in Iraq while increasing their commitment in Afghanistan's Helmand province in 2006.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009, told the Iraq War inquiry said that the army was "running hot".

"You can run hot when you are in balance and there is enough oil sloshing around the engine to keep it going," he said. "When the oil is thin, or not in sufficient quantity, the engine runs the risk of seizing up.

"I think we were getting quite close to a seizing-up moment in 2006."

The decision to send British troops into Helmand province had been "reasonable" when it was initially discussed in 2004, but was more difficult in 2006 as the insurgency in the province had grown stronger. The ongoing wars in Iraq and heavy fighting in Helmand created a difficult situation for British forces.

"We could see that perfect storm coming to fruition in about the middle of 2006 and I would contend that it did," said General Dannatt

The former army chief praised America's troop surge in Iraq in 2007, led by US General David Petraeus, and added that the surge, coinciding with Britain's phased withdrawal, had made British forces look "flat-footed".

"Against that description of them adapting quickly, in Iraq we may have looked a bit flat-footed. But I would maintain the circumstances were rather different. They were reinforcing their campaign. They were surging their troop numbers. They were spreading themselves in small bases throughout the population, getting among the people, whereas we were doing absolutely the opposite."

As well as difficulties in Helmand, General Dannatt said that the UK had "worked round" the problems with the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers.

"It remains unsatisfactory that it is only now that we have closed with the issue," he told the inquiry. "We worked round the problem, we didn't actually confront the problem."

Dannatt was also critical of the "internal machinations" which resulted in the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) in-service date being pushed back from 2007 to 2015.

"It has now moved so far to the right that it is effectively a dead programme," he said. "The money that might have gone into the FRES programme substantially went into the carrier programme." ]]> Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:09:52 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=306&PID=7062#7062 http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7061#7061 Author: Elaine
Subject: Snatch Land Rovers
Posted: 28 Jul 2010 at 9:07pm

Snatch dangers 'known in 2006'
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Ministers were warned by General over 'unnecessary casualties' if Snatch Land Rovers continued to be used

Defence ministers were told in 2006 that more soldiers would die if Snatch Land Rovers continued to be used to transport frontline troops.

Lieutenant-General Nicholas Houghton wrote to defence ministers and the three service chiefs on 7 July 2006 to call for a medium-weight protected patrol vehicle (PPV) to replace the Snatch Land Rovers in order to avoid "unnecessary casualties".

In his letter, published by the Iraq War inquiry, General Houghton wrote that the "engineering and technological limits of the physical protection that can be provided by Snatch and other lightweight PPVs" had been reached.

"We need a medium-weight PPV (protected patrol vehicle) in order to provide a significantly enhanced physical protection against EFP (explosively formed projectile) IEDs and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) in order to prosecute our missions successfully without unnecessary casualties," he wrote.

"Only a balanced force will give the operational commander the optimum flexibility to meet the range of tasks based on an assessment of threat and risk. The front-line commands share this assessment."

The letter was addressed to Lord Drayson, then defence procurement minister, and copies were sent to then-Defence Secretary Des Browne, other defence ministers and the defence chiefs of staff.

A hand-written note at the top of the memo reads: "Ministers can no longer say in the House [of Commons] that they have had no request from commanders for an alternative to the Snatch."

Lord Drayson's office responded by asking General Houghton how many vehicles he thought would be required and how they might be made available to send to Iraq in November 2006.

Lieutenant General Sir Robert Fulton, deputy chief of defence staff with responsibility for equipment capability from 2003 to 2006, told the Iraq War inquiry that the Snatch vehicles had been upgraded, but that no more armour could be added.

"This was a constant process of adding more and more protection," he said. "Of course there is going to come a time when the enemy has gone on adding kilograms of explosive and you can't go on adding kilograms of steel, and therefore there has to be a step change."

Responding to the declassification of the letter, Tim Farron, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs & Defence, said: "As we long suspected, generals told ministers that they needed better equipment to protect their troops and to prevent more casualties. For years the army had to make do with adding extra protection to their existing, unsuitable vehicles.

"This is unacceptable in any situation and led to unnecessary casualties. I look forward to working with my coalition colleagues to put these kind of indefensible practices behind us by making sure our brave soldiers are properly equipped."
    

Edited by Elaine - 28 Jul 2010 at 9:08pm]]> Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:07:42 UT http://www.mfsg.org.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=138&PID=7061#7061