Labour Failed The British Army in Iraq

When giving evidence before the Chilcot inquiry Admiral Lord Boyce has suggested that Labour government ministers were not at all happy with the idea of regime change in Iraq and as such they were unable to provide the required funding for the conflict.

Boyce said to the Inquiry "I suspect if I asked half the cabinet were we at war, they would not have known what I was talking about. There was a lack of political cohesion at the top". It sounds as if Tony Blair had a cabinet that was comprised of mushrooms who were kept very much in the dark and fed on manure.

Not surprisngly Lord Boyce singled out ex PM Brown the chancellor of the exchequer at the time reporting that the Treasury had become an "impediment" to the operation.

Boyce also stated that ex PM Tony Blair had not kept his promises to provide the British troops with the necessary equipment that they needed for the conflict.

He said that obtaining funds from HM Treasury was like "getting blood out of a stone" he went on to say that "The Treasury is inherently unable to deliver money unless it is actually beaten over the head. The Treasury didn't think we were on a war footing". How can a Prime Minister send soldiers to war with out the required financial support?

The question you have to ask is who was at HM Treasury at this time? Well it should come as absolutely no surprise that Ed Balls who is the new shadow chancellor for the Labour party was the chief economic adviser to HM Treasury and in this post he was once named the 'most powerful unelected person in Britain'.

I ask my self where was that clunking fist of a man Gordon Brown the man who claimed he saved the World's Banks. He must have been hiding in his bunker to scared to say boo to Tony. Blair said before the Inquiry that Thatcher did not have her chancellor in her Falklands war cabinet what a glib comment. He seemed to use this as justification for excluding his chancellor in the war cabinet. I cannot see the comparison as the Falklands battle was a response to an invasion where we were repulsing an attacker from our territory not beimg the invader for regime change in a foreign territory.

Other major variances were that Thatcher knew exactly what she was doing and she had a cabinet which had unity. Also this was a limited conflict not an open ended cheque book? That conflict was carefully organised and managed as far as any response to an invasion can be.

Gordon Brown should have got out of his bunker and try to provide the cohension or indeed caution that was so urgently needed. The truth I am sure is that by this time the relationship between Blar and Brown had broken down to such a state that they were no longer talking to each other.

The one person who did have any idea at all was the late Robin Cook who resigned in protest. At least that proud man quite rightly had the courage and belief in his convictions and we must admire him for that.

Lord Boyce criticised Brown for introducing an accounting system which meant that the MOD Ministry of Defence was discouraged from holding large amounts of stock. He said that this had the effect of "just enough,just in time", for delivery of equipment. This to me and, I am an accountant, sounds like the system that a large supermarket such as Walmart might have but not in a military war where lives are at risk.


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