Hindsight, With Both Barrels
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Posted
by Douglas Barrie at
11/9/2009 9:43 AM CST
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Former senior military arrayed the benches of the British House of Lords, November 6, to blast various elements of the Labour government’s performance on defense.
Common threads included procurement performance in general, and helicopter acquisition in particular.
Lord Guthrie, the chief of defense staff (CDS) when the Labour Government carried out its 1998 Strategic Defense Review, told the Lords: “I believe that in 1998 the Strategic Defense Review was very successful and well put together.”
There was however, one main problem: “Although the Cabinet signed up to it, almost from the moment that Cabinet meeting ended, the proposal started to be unpicked by the Treasury. It was very unsympathetic to defense and, although it was prepared when times were good to give a lot of money to other ministries, the Ministry of Defense continued to come off very badly in comparison.”
The then-chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, is now the British Prime Minister.
Guthrie also criticized the government over helicopter resources made available for Afghanistan.
“It is unsatisfactory for the Ministry of Defense and Ministers always to say that things are better. They are always quoting percentage increases and the number of flying hours that have been increased. That all sounds very good until you realize what a low state it was in at the beginning. I have no doubt whatever that, with additional helicopters, some of the lives that have been lost would have been saved.”
Lord Boyce, who followed Guthrie as CDS also weighed in on the 1998 SDR, suggesting it “was never properly funded.”
Yet another former CDS, Lord Craig of Radley, meanwhile warned that a similar fate awaited Bernard Gray’s recent report on procurement reform, unless long-term funding profiles could be agreed on across the department.
The report, he suggested: “ banks on a well preserved forecast of funding for a decade ahead. Is that realistic after all our experience in this field? Will other government departments allow it, let alone the Treasury? If not, Gray is dead meat.”
Lord Lee of Trafford, meanwhile, helpfully pointed to assertions in the 1998 SDR to see what had come to pass.
“Paragraph 6 of the introduction to the 1998 SDR reads: ‘So we plan to buy two new larger aircraft carriers to project power more flexibly around the world. New transport aircraft and ships will move our people and equipment rapidly to trouble-spots’.
“Well, the carriers are at best some years away and new transport aircraft are hardly on the horizon.”
He then points out that the 1998 stated: “We will also radically reorganize our procurement and logistics organizations to spur efficiency and drive through best business practice… Too often in the past our new equipment has been too expensive and delivered too late”.
As far as this aim is concerned, Lee points out: “Well, if we believe (the) Gray (procurement report), we are still at first base.”
The government, however, also had a point to make about hindsight.
Lord Drayson, minister for acquisition reform, told the House: “Ministers take decisions based on military advice. With hindsight, the decision of the military back in 2004 to recommend a significant cut in the helicopter budget has clearly had a major impact in relation to our inability to increase helicopter numbers as fast as we should like.”
