What is Des Browne thinking?

Faceless Bureaucrat

"What is Des Browne Thinking? - the same as always - nothing...

What a typically spineless and pathetic (not to mention wrong) response from someone who one senior MoD Official I met recently described as "Someone who I would not trust to sit the right way round on a lavatory seat!!" - praise indeed... The fact that this ruling comes in the same week as the BAe Al Yamamah finding does rekindle some hope that our Judiciary has finally awoken from its over-long slumber and is finally coming up with some realistic and sensible judgements. Is that a light I can see at the end of the tunnel?...

Anthony

I can see real problems with this. How does one define "properly equipped"? What is the standard against which this is measured? If we measure it against the Americans, our people are very badly equipped. If we measure it against 90 per cent of the armed forces of the world, they are very well equipped.

This isn't an issue I take at all lightly - a good friend of mine was killed in Afghanistan at the end of last year. But I'd be interested to know a) how this is going to be enforceable and against what yardsticks judgment will be made and b) why anyone thinks things will be better under the Conservatives [for whom, lest anyone thinks I'm making a party political point, I will be voting] when they are offering virtually no more money and where bureaucratic structures with regard to procurement and logistics will take years to be reformed, if they can be reformed at all.

burma toad

But what is "properly equipped"? Who is to decide that? The only people who should make that decision are the service chiefs themselves - and not following the basis of some health'n'safety risk assessment. Churchill didn't yield to Halifax in May 1940 because the BEF had left all its equipment in Dunkirk. It's absurd. Does Liam Fox really think that the legal establishment and the HRA should have a bearing on operational decisions? His words smack of sheer opportunism.

Trumpeter Lanfried

So, in a blaze of publicity, the Government tries to muzzle the judiciary - with predictable results.

Not too smart, are they?

DougS

Anthony and Burma Toad are exactly right. Pete (and Liam), do you really want to get the lawyers involved in this? Dear God, human rights lawyers, no less!?

It's the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. In fact, the adequacy of force protection/kit/equipment is PRECISELY a political question for Parliament to address . . . and a classic issue by which governments may stand or fall . . . or totter (e.g., Lloyd George's first assault on Asquith over the alleged "shell shortage" in 1915).

Leave it to the political arena; keep it away from the slow/purist/abstracted/ignorant/naive judiciary.

This is part and parcel of so much of the nonsense going on in Britain today that is slowly but surely undermining society. If it weren't so tragic, it would be funny; at very least it's astonishing.

Yes, Liam Fox's words "smack of sheer opportunism," as Burma Toad has it. Shame!

(Anthony: Condolences over your friend. He was doing something crucial for all of us.)

Perry

Well, as always, the proof of any pudding is in the eating. So, let there be no delay! Kit the Minister out and let him spend a few weeks in the front line, - no really, - in the FRONT LINE.

Obviously he’d need only refresher training, for, no doubt, with so much time on his hands, he has taken scrupulous care to keep bang up-to-date with his fitness, field craft, and other necessary soldierly skills.

I’m sure the lads would find great comfort in having him there. Oh yes, - and he can spend time in the air too : check out the old Nimrods for a few days, and fly with the Army Air Corps.

He does not earn the epithet Des ‘Leads-from-the-front’ Brown for nothing.

bill

The idea that the HRA should apply to the armed forces in theatre is absurd and will only enable the lefties to undermine the forces even more.

Verity

I have a feeling Brown is legally brain dead and is just being animated with a series of electric shocks. Or his cranium is empty, save two or three free-floating brain cells.

This is the man who opines that "we must" talk to Al-Qaeda. I mean, this man has missed the point of Al-Qaeda. He thinks he can talk crazy people out of a religious conviction.

Anthony

It's not in my nature to defend Des Browne (who is, let's be clear, a profoundly mediocre Defence Secretary at a time when the costs of mediocrity are very, very high), but that's simply not the case.

What Browne said was that we needed to talk to elements within the Taliban with an aim to decoupling "moderate" elements within the movement from the die-hards and AQ and, hopefully, integrating them with the central Afghan government. He explicitly stated that this did not extend to AQ, due to the fact that their maximalist aims put them beyond the reach of accommodation.

In my experience, this stance is, rightly or wrongly, pretty much in line with that of large sections of the officer corps of both the British and US Armies. Indeed, in spite of the whirlwind of criticism that Browne received, alleging that he was stabbing the troops in the back, I find it hard to believe that the statement was not prepared in consultation with senior officers.

Chuck Unsworth

'Properly equipped' presumably means 'with all of the equipment which has been approved by the military for use in the particular circumstances into which soldiers are being placed'. The issue all along has been that MoD has failed to provide a sufficiency of that equipment, directly leading to avoidable deaths and injuries.

Naturally Browne will be in the business of limiting his government's liability, rather than providing suitable protection.

A truly admirable and inspiring Minister, with all of the attributes we have come to expect from the New Labour movement.

'We found ourselves in a very difficult and changing environment'. Oh! So this was entirely unanticipated? Why, exactly? What happened to joined-up Government? This is just dissimulation - and very poor quality dissimulation at that.

KB

Verity,

You've dropped an 'e' - which is kind of appropriate since that's how Browne behaves all the time.

paul hill

When the convention that Ministers are actually responsible for their Departments died peacefully in it's sleep and resignation for anything less than treason became unthinkable and the defence Staff were recontituted to a secret Nu Labour formula from the ranks of performing seals then the lawyers inevitably move in.
If you add up the costs of the idiot Browne trying to muzzle the press.the Coroners Courts,the relatives and anybody else that dares to speak out you could probably equip three Battalions of infantry with something better than the Korean war surplus they currently make do with

Roy

As regards sending British troops to war zones ill equipped, perhaps intelligent leadership could also be added as equally important. Hardly since Napoleon's day with the Iron Duke along with Kitchener's brief sojourn in the desert have the British armed forces been responsibly sent to battle. One long trail of disaster after disaster. Only the odd skirmishes have thrust into the forefront men with guts, bravery, and leadership, who have won the day. Men who have been overlooked and dismissed but have shown their superiors how to do it . . . as usual, against all odds.

Fergus Pickering

Come, Roy. Aren't you forgetting General Montgomery who wouldn't move his troops until he had all the equipment IN SPITE OF Churchill's constant sniping. And consequently Montgomery won and we won. Or so I've heard.