Letter to the Defence Equipment & Support Secretariat, 13th July 2009
Dear Andrew Parrish
Thank you for your letter 6th July concerning a variety of defence related issues.
Reading your somewhat self-gratifying account, attempting to give the MOD some respectability that it hardly deserves, is frightening. One sees the same double speak that ran throughout the scandalous ‘Chinook’ fiasco where even senior officials like Air Marshals, after numerous inquiries, were caught up in the MOD’s deceitful assertions that dead pilots were to blame for the crash of ‘faulty helicopters’. The nation has known for years that the MOD suffers from poor project management.
The annuls of MOD self-protective deceits are wide and varied, there is the MP Virginia Bottomly’s plea on behalf of Major Milos Stankovic, she said “There appears to be a conspiracy to hold my constituent completely incommunicado and deprive him of evidence for his defence”. It appears these appalling MOD deceits against the Major led to a substantial compensation payout?
The nation is well aware of the tactics used by the MOD, like all government departments, it hides embarrassing truths with a finely honed cover-up culture that defies transparency and accountability.
Your letter claims that the decision not to ground the Nimrod was taken on the advice from the Chief of Staff, the Chief of Material Air, the RAFs Senior Engineer, after close consideration of proceedings throughout the course of the inquest.
You further claim that “The verdict when it came, did not reveal anything that was not already known to the Department".
This statement gives serious indication that the MOD knew that the ‘aircraft had never been airworthy’ and ‘that the fleet should be grounded’, even before the coroner made these glaring accusations? Yet despite the coroner’s serious denunciation of this 40-year-old aircraft, with its numerous faults, the defensive Defence Secretary Ainsworth, out of his depth immediately claimed the Nimrod was safe?
Secretary Ainsworth then repeatedly claimed that Qinetiq, the defence consultants, said the aircraft was safe to fly. This is not quite what Qinetiq said?
Despite this catastrophic bungling, Ainsworth calls upon troops for more sacrifice?
The MOD’s rather easy going appraisal of itself will surely be shattered by Haddon Cave QC’s independent Nimrod inquiry, one hopes information given out by the MOD is above board and transparent? Hopefully unlike the MOD’s ‘Chinook’ long-time cover-up deceit, where enormously expensive faulty helicopters were held in storage for years - plus the MOD’s deceitful routine against Major Stankovic.
The Defence Equipment & Support Secretariat rather glosses over the Vector fiasco that put pressure on front-line troops, it gives little account of this faulty procurement that replaced the failed lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers. The Vector proved to be useless and was withdrawn with MOD double-speak claiming the Vector had ‘unspecified mechanical and technical issues’, obviously not spotted during what should have been a detailed inspection during the procurement stage.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee – ever on the ball – claimed amongst other criticisms that it “was a woeful state of affairs” when commanders in the field lost confidence in a new vehicle like the Vector so quickly.
In your last paragraph, writing of the Armed Forces, you rather sadly claim; ‘We are very proud of the professional, skilful and disciplined way in which they conduct themselves in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.’
All too often its the MOD’s poor project management that help create difficult and dangerous circumstance for our front line troops. MOD are in danger of hiding behind the glory of dead soldiers, whose deaths, they have in some measure helped to create.
As a former front line soldier, a war pensioner corruptly handled by civil servants, I see your letter as pure bureaucratic disingenuous claptrap. It is the MOD that is in severe need of professionalism, its lack of ability to procure efficient armaments and equipment means our troops are continually saddled with the added burden of having to learn how to deal with poor equipment in the heat of battle. This is just a furtherance of the MOD’s negligence.
That troops be urged-on to pay the ultimate sacrifice from a sleaze-ridden Westminster and from such a dysfunctional body, as the MOD is akin to bungling 1914-18 generals sending innocents to their graves in the pretence they were fighting for a more decent tomorrow.
I have complained often enough about the MOD’s procurement disabilities, how millions have been trousered by its staff. The dodgy way its staff made millions with the formation of Qinetiq? That Qinetiq is now the MOD’s biggest customer? This particular episode simply adds to more Westminster stench.
The MOD is an unmitigated failure in relation to costs and adequate staff. Then, when things go wrong, its well-honed ‘cover-up culture’ works overtime on deceit and self-protection.
When the MOD de&s next write to critics or members of the electorate, or the public in general; it should give one or two honest indications that the MOD has severe procurement problems, that its staff make many balls-ups, that it lacks transparency.
Tell the public how the MOD is extremely inefficient, that much procurement are staggeringly wasteful, for instance helicopters being left in storage for years, awaiting costly improvements. Billions go down the drain for lack of business acumen.
Being a war pensioner, someone who has had his head above the parapet, I am sick that men, who put their lives on the line, are governed by political deceit. Where ministers, previously ridiculed as excessive expenses claimants now have the power, and the brass-neck, to urge more sacrifices from our severely neglected troops, this is pure Orwellian double-speak political chicanery.
One can see the MOD’s entrenched cover-up culture that was so prominent in the Chinook procurement disaster and in Major Stankovic case is deceitfully taking up a self-protective stance within the Nimrod fiasco – roll on Haddon Cave QC and his Nimrod inquiry!
AW Tanner cc to all interested in political fraudulence and deceit