When leftists are left in charge of national security

Times Online - A devastating official report suppressed by ministers has revealed that soldiers’ lives are being put at risk by “endemic” failures at the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The secret dossier blames “political fudge” and Whitehall incompetence for the plight of soldiers in Afghanistan who are provided with inadequate frontline kit. The 296-page report, leaked to The Sunday Times, claims the scale of MoD bungling is so severe it “is harming our ability . . . to conduct difficult current operations”.

......The author of the report, Bernard Gray, a leading businessman and former special adviser to Labour defence ministers, writes: “How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank?
“Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought?
“Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it was supposed to?”

......“The problems, and the sums of money involved, have almost lost their power to shock, so endemic is the issue,” writes Gray. “It seems as though military equipment acquisition is vying in a technological race with the delivery of civilian software systems for the title of ‘world’s most delayed technical solution’. Even British trains cannot compete.”

......Gray calls for legislation forcing defence ministers to hold full-scale defence reviews every four or five years and criticises Labour ministers for their failure to hold a strategic defence review since 1998. “In corporate life, no enterprise would persist with a 12-year-old strategy without at least reevaluating it fully on a regular basis,” he writes. “Few who would expect to prosper would even try to do so.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them