Forces statistics

Lord Guthrie, former Chief of Defence Staff, reinforced the (withheld) findings of Bernard Gray (-wasted £35 billion in defence projects), with a stinging attack on the MOD.

"At the head of this unwieldy edifice are six ministers, each enjoying a private office and their own staff - six private empires, with their own turf to be jealously guarded. Sadly, bigger does not mean more efficient; usually quite the opposite." Mistakes are made by indecisive ministers, hordes of special advisers and a demoralised set of civil servants.

In fact there are 87,000 staff at the MOD, almost one for every 2 members of the forces. The forces are under strength, - 5,000 in total, 2,000 in the army, despite this being a very good recruitment time because of recession and unemployment. The army should amount to 101,000, but this total includes people not on the front line even if they are needed - logistics, stores, cooks, trainers, etc.

As we have seen , because of overstretch in Iraq/Afghanistan, and in many places throughout the world, the government has been denying the men on the front line not only equipment but also reinforcements.

This government is indicted on three grounds:

- It has committed too many troops in too many wars.

- It has failed to supply sufficient troops now in Afghanistan. The result is that our troops can defeat the Taliban and capture land at some personal cost, but does not have enough troops to hold on to the land, and the Taliban re-emerge and take it.

- It has failed consistently to provide our troops with personal items, - one mother is regularly sending her son clothing and socks, or with life-saving helicopters and mine detection equipment.

In a word, incompetence in the MOD is overcome only by the excellence and dedication of our troops, and failure at the MOD has led to something 1,000 casualties , or over 10% of troop0s at risk.