Despite all the promises, the Government is still achieving nothing with regard to its Iraqi employees. Leave aside, for the moment, the considerable numbers who are being rejected. Even the accepted – in so far as this category means anything yet – are still in Iraq, still on the streets, and still in danger. “I…
Read More I am still in Iraq…I hear nothing from your Government!Iraqi employees: suddenly they’re everywhere. On the front of the Times. In its leader. On the main news. On BBC Radio 5 Live. In Ming Campbell’s talking points. In Gordon Brown’s inbox. Even here. You might almost think there was some sort of campaign going on. Now, there’s more; video. There’s also a useful sidebar…
Read More Roll Bandwagons, Roll!Do we actually have a policy with regard to Afghanistan? The question wants asking. After all, we’ve just had a change of government, and Gordon Brown is apparently willing to appoint people from other political parties or none. But despite this, Des “Swiss Toni” Browne is left in place as secretary of defence, with the…
Read More Does Gordon Brown have a policy on Afghanistan?A commenter asks about non-fatal casualties in the British sector in Iraq, suggesting that the mass firefight in which Major Paul Harding was killed might be going on all the time. You ask, we answer. Here’s a chart showing UK wounded in action, by admissions to field hospitals, and killed, from June, 2006, to May,…
Read More CasualtiesIt’s incredible what you can find out if you read the newspaper closely enough (said I.F. Stone, apparently). He wasn’t wrong. Yesterday, a soldier from the 4th Battalion, the Rifles (ex-Green Jackets, for those who aren’t keeping up..) was killed in Basra. Note the detail, though: Major Harding was killed by mortar fire onto the…
Read More News in BriefDan Hardie wants to know what is happening in the area between the southernmost US troops in Iraq – around Najaf if memory serves – and the northernmost British, now that the withdrawal to Basra Air Station is complete. Call it the grey zone – the populous, Shia-dominated gap astride the main supply route to…
Read More Welcome to the grey zoneTom Griffin links a stack of briefings prepared by the Reconstruction Operations Centre in Iraq, the coordination point for private security firms run by Aegis Defence Services. The first thing that strikes me is that they are impressively more sane, factual, and useful that anything I’ve seen emanating from the US Army. Not that this…
Read More IncomingAnother in our occasional series of comments that ought to be posts: Rob Farley discusses a Max Boot article in which Boot accuses Britain and Canada of “unilaterally disarming” on the grounds that Canada had the world’s third largest navy in 1945. Farley, of course, gives Boot short shrift, but does point out that armies…
Read More Bad British HistoryTony Blair doesn’t deserve to be allowed aboard one of HM Ships, let alone use one of them to speechify. Some of the press amused themselves by labelling photographs of Devonport Dockyard with the ships awaiting disposal. This wasn’t, perhaps, fair – the two biggest are Fearless and Intrepid, the two assault ships (LPDs) built…
Read More Blair: just an embarrassmentWell, who else saw Sean Langan’s film from the mission down to Garmser last year? Still can’t stop thinking about it. A small advisory/training team and a company or so of Afghan police were sent down from Camp Bastion to Garmser in the far south to establish a government presence on roads leading in from…
Read More to all of those men..