Reflected glory

With the coroner's report on Sergeant Steve Roberts's death just out, for a brief moment, lack of Army equipment is in the news. Roberts was the soldier who, for want of body armour, was killed in a "friendly fire" incident on 24 March 2003, as he manned a checkpoint outside the southern Iraqi city of Az Zubayr.

But this issue has been smouldering in the background for a long time, largely ignored by the politicians and the media. The former seem more interested in exploiting the military for their "photo opportunities" while the latter seem to treat military affairs as a source of cheap copy. Neither seem to be devoting any time or energy to ensuring that our armed forces are properly equipped.

In this context, the "real" war - i.e., the one the politicians are most interested in - is the battle for the photo-op. For instance, when David Cameron visited the troops in Basra, the government made sure there were no photographs of him addressing soldiers. The few that were published, well after the event, in the main showed the Tory leader talking to (or at) senior officers.

On the other hand, within hours of the great leader Tony's flying visit to Basra Air Station yesterday, we had dozens of photographs to chose from, ranging from the formal address, to the casual and informal, and the "touching", with Blair writing a good luck message on a Warrior MICV.

This cannot, just cannot be a coincidence. I have absolutely no doubt that private polling by the political parties (which produce the detailed results, the like of which we do not see) show that politicians who are seen associating with the military score well in the polls. Hence the succession of Labour ministers making their pilgrimages to both Afghanistan and Iraq, the ready accessibility of the photographs taken and the lengths to which the government goes to ensure that Conservative politicians do not have the same facility.

What we may be seeing – and in my view almost certainly are seeing – is an attempt to capitalise on reflected glory - and, in the context of continued and massive shortages of equipment - doing it on the cheap. For sure, political sophisticates can see through this, but adverse comment has a limited circulation and a short shelf-life. The subliminal message conveyed by a picture of Blair surrounded by "admiring" troops has, I would suggest, a more widespread and lasting effect, which drowns out the cynicism. And, if Balir can get this without coughing up the money for the kit, what should he change?

Similarly, I remain suspicious of the torrent of medals being awarded to troops in the field, something to which I drew attention in an earlier piece, noting the parallel between this government the last days of the siege of Stalingrad, when Junkers 52s from Hitler's Luftwaffe were dispatched to airdrop container-loads of Iron Crosses to the beleaguered troops of the 6th Army.

That, as I wrote at the time, is not in any way to disparage the bravery of our troops, and particularly the likes of Cpl. Bryan Budd, VC, about whom Joe Katzman wrote a moving tribute on his Winds of Change blog.

But, to this old cynic, to find his story recounted in detail on the MoD site - the output of an intensely political government ministry – somehow jars. How convenient it is to have such tales of derring-do which cannot help but invoke positive feelings – with some of the glory inescapably rubbing off on the Ministry. And how much cheaper it is to buy off the troops with medals rather than equip them properly.

It is the same with the tragic deaths of service personnel in theatre - often the result of equipment shortages or inadequacies. Note, for instance, the careful attention to detail following the deaths arising from the bomb on the Shatt al-Arab, the emotive personal pictures and the carefully staged photographs of the repatriation of their bodies.

All right and proper you might say and you would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the details. But, as we recorded on this blog, how selective were those details. And, even to this day, further details have to be dragged out of the MoD, viz the answer to another written parliamentary question from the dogged Mike Hancock MP, who has asked how many incidents of British service personnel coming under attack on the Shatt al-Arab waterway took place before the 12 November bombing.

The answer came again from bully-boy Ingram, which stated: "Centrally held records show that between 15 June 2003 and 23 November 2006 there have been 16 attacks on British forces transiting the Shatt al-Arab waterway". Note the use of "centrally held records", which means there were almost certainly more than 16 attacks which suggests that – as we have indicated – that there was an extremely high risk of a fatal incident.

You will, of course, note no reference to this question on the MoD website, nor will you see any of the information conveyed on that website. And such selectivity suggests that the MoD is exploiting the courage and suffering of its "employees" while being highly economical about the circumstances in which they occurred.

By that measure, perhaps personal details relating to service personnel should not appear on the MoD site but on the respective sites maintained by each service, with a degree of detachment from the MoD.

The trouble is though that you will not get support from the media for such a quest. Journalists appreciate the quickness and convenience of the one-stop-shop and are, in any case, in the exploitative business themselves, capitalising on what is actually cheap copy. Thus you get the saturation coverage in the Telegraph and in the manner of this newspaper, which is so quick to defend its own intellectual property, there is not a whisper of a suggestion that its source was MoD press handouts, its coverage being merely edits of the free copy provided.

But a particularly odious player in the exploitation game is Mike Smith of The Times, who uses the courage (and the death) of Corporal Bryan Budd (pictured) as a foil to make a series of points in his own blog, the post headed – with the lack of imagination for which the man is famous – "Lions Led By Whitehall Donkeys".

He writes (again without acknowledging his sources) of the failure of the RAF to deliver supplies to the troops holed up in Sangin, due in part to the unserviceability of the Hercules tasked to support them and then to a drop missing its target, supplies falling into the centre of the town in a mosque controlled by the Taliban.

He describes how the US stepped in with their helicopters, to deliver rations and how further supplies were delivered by a Canadian relief convoy, "making a mockery of government claims that the British had enough troops and resources of their own." And then, as 3rd Para soldiers repulsed the Taliban again and again, Smith writes:

By now the Taliban were reluctant to make direct attacks and concentrated on rocket and mortar attacks, one of which killed L/Cpl Luke McCulloch of the Royal Irish Regiment, a week into the deployment. He was the eighth British soldier to die in Sangin.

What makes the difference between this and, say, the purely descriptive pieces in the Telegraph and the measured piece by Katzman it that Smith uses the detail to snipe at the government – but he does not use his power to fight for better equipment.

In fact, this is the man who swallowed the MoD propaganda on "Snatch" Land Rovers, and buys in uncritically to the idea of armoured Pinzgauers.

Inevitably, therefore, as he writes about L/Cpl Luke McCulloch being killed in one of the many rocket and mortar attacks, he does not think to ask why the British Army in this day and age is so vulnerable to such primitive weapons, why it is not taking countermeasures and why technology which has been available for decades is not being used.

This is where editorialising over the unfortunate death of Sergeant Steve Roberts can actually be harmful.

It is all very well tut-tutting about the lack of kit in 2003, but the MoD has since made heroic efforts to ensure that all troops in operation areas are equipped with the very latest in body armour. This, therefore, is no longer an issue and, in the final analysis, it was only (partially) responsible for the death of one man. Many more have been killed through inadequate vehicles and through failing to deal with the mortar menace.

Roberts's widow Samantha herself noted that the body armour issue had been resolved. "This is Steve's legacy," she said. Referring to MoD supply failures, she added, "but we must ensure that these failures are not repeated with other basic kit."

Just focusing on body armour, therefore, will simply allow the MoD to wriggle off the hook, evading scrutiny for the serious shortage of kit, which is now current, such as the Vipir thermal imager, UAV's, light helicopters and much else.

Typically though one can see the media going for the cheap and easy option, exploiting others' grief and misfortune, but not seeking to prevent more of it. Then, in giving the impression of "supporting our boys", it is also going for the reflected glory. In that way, the media are as bad as the politicians.

What we actually need from both the media and the politicians is clear, clinical detail on what our troops need and then active campaigns to ensure that they get it. This is where the opposition should be up front and making itself heard. Moralising and pontificating about issues long past - or merely uttering generalised waffle - is not good enough.

All we are hearing from Tory defence spokesman Liam Fox is the view that: "To send soldiers into combat without the appropriate equipment is utterly inexcusable and in a more honourable government it would have resulted in resignations. The story of this government's defence policy is too little, too late."

He adds that, "We still hear stories which reinforce the point that Tony Blair's government is all too willing to commit our forces to battle without committing the appropriate resources to our armed forces."

That certainly is not good enough. What is he going to do about it?

A very poor job

You can almost taste the frustration as you read the single statement that effectively negates the whole of the report. It starts:

We strongly regret the MoD's refusal to supply us even with a classified summary of the information against which it assesses the success of its military operations. This makes it impossible for us to assure the House of the validity of its assessment.

We are, or course, referring to the Defence select committee Annual Performance Report on the Ministry of Defence, published today. And here we have the MPs admitting (as well as deploring) that fact that the MoD is not even supplying them with the basic information that they need to do their job.

Amazingly though, what should be headline news is ignored by the media, which makes you wonder whether any of the journalists actually read the report.

Instead, they concentrate by and large on this statement in the conclusions:

The Armed Forces are operating in challenging conditions and without all the equipment they need. The current level of commitments is impacting on training. With problems of undermanning continuing, there is a clear danger that the Armed Forces will not be capable of maintaining current commitments over the medium-term.

This allows The Sun to proclaims: "Military is in meltdown" but it certainly says something of the spinmeisters of the MoD that, from the same report, they are able to headline on their website: "MOD's Overall Performance 'Satisfactory' Say MPs".

Looking at the thrust of the media coverage, however, the "troops and equipment" story has it. The Telegraph, for instance, tells you: "Armed forces are 'undermanned and ill-equipped'", the story attributed to Tim Hall and "agencies", although why agencies should be needed or credited when this is a story about a report, heaven (and the Telegraph management) only knows.

The Scotsman carries a similar line with. "Military shortages 'pose danger'", based on a Reuters report, while Monsters and Critics runs "British troops 'ill equipped'".

All of this, from these and many other media outlets, looks pretty damning until you actually look at the select committee report for the damning evidence on the lack of equipment. And what do we see?

Well, there are references to the shortage of battlefield helicopters and to the lack of airlift capability. That is it. The MPs have swallowed, hook line and sinker, the MoD claim to have solved the "Snatch" Land Rover problem, with no one questioning whether the huge Mastiff is really suitable as a patrol vehicle, or whether the Pinzgauer Vector is at all safe.

But the really depressing thing is how the MPs are so reactive, chained to the MoD for their information and their agenda. Thus, there is no "out of the box" thinking. There is no questioning about the need for light reconnaissance and attack helicopters; nothing about tactical UAVs and UCAVs. Nothing is asked about base defences using the Phalanx C-RAM systems, or the availability of counter-battery mortar or low yield precision guided missiles like Viper Strike. Nor, indeed, is anything asked of the availability of thermal imagers that are apparently so desperately needed in Afghanistan.

They could of course got all of that information from this blog, free of charge but these people are MPs. With very few exceptions, both they and their researchers are far too grand to soil their eyes on such material. Of course, the select committees do have their own research capabilities (albeit limited), but each of the MPs - with their average of £131,000 in expenses (up from £118,000 in 2004) - can also finance their own research to see what equipment is needed.

Most of all, however - and this tells who that the MPs are not at all serious in their work - the select committees can call for written evidence and, in their hearings, call any witnesses who could help them in their inquiries.

So, with a nation at war, casualties mounting and predictions of woe coming from all quarters, how many evidential sessions do you think they held? Well, one is the number. With Mr James Arbuthnot (pictured), in the chair, they took evidence from er… Mr Bill Jeffrey CB, Permanent Under Secretary of State, and Mr Trevor Woolley, Finance Director, Ministry of Defence. For their written evidence, they relied on one main and one supplementary memorandum from – you guessed it – the Ministry of Defence.

Now, rightly, we expect a great of our armed forces and we are critical of them when they mess up. Only very recently were we hearing about an inquiry into the actions of some Royal Marines after a suicide bomb attack in Kandahar. But, the other half of the bargain is that we look after our troops.

From the evidence of this superficial, inadequate report, we can say that the bargain is not being honoured. In fact, if our troops did their jobs as badly as these overpaid idlers, we would be in deep trouble and the nation would be clamouring for heads to roll.

Of course, if the media was doing its job properly, then these charlatans would be exposed for what they really are – but then that really is asking too much.

COMMENT THREAD

That strange disconnected feeling

Although we gave defence issues a bashing over the weekend, this simply reflected the fairly heavy coverage in the MSM and the fact that events seem to be coming to a head.

Thus, there can be no let-up in coverage, not least as today there were also defence questions in the Commons. Courtesy of the internet, we were able to watch with growing incredulity as Des Browne claimed that the training of Iraqi police was progressing well and that Operation Sinbad was delivering results.

Somehow, somewhere, there seems to be something of a "disconnect" between what the secretary of state is saying and even the limited coverage that we get in the MSM and from other sources.

For instance, in today's Telegraph & Argus – EU Referendum's local paper – we see a headline on how a "hero sarge" rescued "trapped Britons". The strap gives further detail and the story itself reveals all – that two badly injured British contractors had to be rescued from heavily armed and hostile Iraqi police, in order for them to receive urgent medical treatment.

Er… excuse me? A British soldier had to rescue two British citizens from the local police? Said Sgt. Leonard: "They were armed to the teeth with snipers and heavy machine guns on the nearby rooftops and all the weapons were pointed our way".

Such testimony adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests that the Iraqi police are highly unreliable and thus, while we hail the gallant and cool Sergeant but wonder whether he inhabits the same world as the secretary of state, where everything is going so swimmingly well.

Equally do we wonder when reading a report today in The Scotsman, from which we learn that the commanding officer of the Black Watch in Iraq has warned that insurgent attacks will rise ahead of the planned security handover to local forces in the Basra area next year.

This is not news at all to the followers of this blog. Says Major Wrench: "What we feel is that the insurgents, or terrorists and criminals as we refer to them, are operating from the north and moving south. We are beginning to see increased activity coming from the north as groups try to jostle for position, knowing that at some stage we will be withdrawing."

But what we also learn from the report is that, in the early hours of last Friday, a British soldier was seriously injured in a rocket attack on the base at the Shatt al-Arab hotel. We know also from another report that there was also a rocket attack on the base last Wednesday and we had the additional report which indicated that, in recent months, the base had taken over 1000 mortar and rocket attacks.

If all this is happening already and Major Wrench is predicting that attacks are going to intensify, then our troops look to be in for a pretty miserable and dangerous time. Just because most of the attacks miss their targets does not mean that the potential for enormous carnage is not there – these things are dangerous, as can be seen from this dramatic shot of a mortar attack on the British Abu Naji base in al-Amarah.

It seems almost inevitable, therefore, that we will be seeing more soldiers making their trip back to Blighty in coffins.

All that brings me to the editorial in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, headed "Lions supplied by donkeys". One should not be too rude about it, I suppose, but do we really need a "comprehensive strategic review"? We already know what is needed. What is missing is the political will and the determination to ensure that our troops get the weapons and protection they need.

COMMENT THREAD

A failure of opposition

This is the front page of the Sunday Telegraph website today. The story is about the suicide bomb attack on a Royal Marine Land Rover, which we reported on 4 December.

The crews of vehicles rushing away from the scene with their injured colleagues fired on civilian vehicles, causing at least one death and several injuries. And now, we are told by the Telegraph, it has "emerged" that the deaths are being investigated by Nato.

As did confusions reign at the scene, however, so does confusion reign now. Even at the time, papers like the Gulf News were reporting that a Nato inquiry was to be carried out. Said spokesman Major Luke Knittig, cited by multiple media sources, "We will establish the facts. It is still unclear in what way the troops reacted."

And then… we have the BBC. One of the lead items on the radio news and pride of place on the website last night was the news that the Royal Military Police have already investigated whether the troops acted outside the rules of engagement.

The British spokesman in southern Afghanistan, Lt Col Andy Price, said the investigation had been thoroughly completed and that proportional and reasonable force had been used throughout. The men perceived a serious risk, and had fired only after warning shots and flares had been fired, he said.

However, according to the same BBC source, the MoD says reports of civilian injuries are being investigated, adding that, "It would be inappropriate to comment further whilst this investigation is ongoing."

Next, we have the Guardian. Its piece is headlined, "Troops under investigation for Kandahar shooting spree" and it cites Squadron Leader Jason Chalk, a spokesman for Nato regional command in Kandahar. He describes the reports as "disconcerting" and, according to the Guardian, promised a thorough investigation by Royal Military police. "If people are found to have acted outside the rules of engagement, they will be held to account for their actions," he was cited as saying.

However, whatever happened on 3 December, of one thing we can be sure. There is no way British troops should have been driving up "Ambush Alley" in unarmoured Land Rovers.

Looking at the amount of damage done to the targeted vehicle, it can be said almost as a matter of certainty that, had they been properly equipped – as have been the Canadians - (and the Dutch, the Americans, the Australians, the Germans and the French) the troops would not have been injured.

Had the troops been uninjured, there would have been no wild dash to get the casualties to the hospital, no shootings and no civilian deaths or injuries. Thus, any enquiry should surely encompass questions as to why the troops were so dangerously and irresponsibly exposed.

Now to the main issue of the title. As we have observed earlier, there has been a curious lack of concern from the media about the welfare of these troops (in comparison with the crocodile tears elsewhere). This, in turn, has created a major opportunity for the opposition. Any switched-on spokesman could quite properly have exploited this issue to the advantage of his own political party and our soldiers exposed to danger.

Imagine, if you will, that this issue had been raised on Monday 4 December by none other that the Boy King, "Dave" Cameron. Suppose it had been followed by a blitz of questions from the defence team, raised at prime minister's questions on the Wednesday and then plastered all over the Conservative's web site.

With Iraq high profile in the news and then General Mike Jackson’s intervention, complaining inter alia about inadequate equipment, one can now easily imagine that the Conservatives would be at the centre of a political storm, their attacks on the government on every front page.

This was what I was trying to get at in Part II of my "retreat from politics" series. We have already shown that defence procurement can be a front page issue and with only a little skill, this current issue could have been turned into another procurement issue, forcing the government to take emergency action to obtain suitable equipment.

As it is, the story is on the front page, but it is focused on the troops involved rather than the government – adding, no doubt, to the soldiers' feeling of being under-valued. But the Conservatives have been silent on this issue and therefore, there is no mention of any Conservative politician.*

The best we have had in recent times is the procurement spokesman, Gerald Howarth, giving a commercial puff to the dangerously fragile Pinzgauer.

Any which way you cut it – as I am rather fond of saying at the moment – this is a failure of opposition. And it is not unreasonable to postulate that one result of that failure is that troops will continue to be unprotected, and some will die unnecessarily. A further result may be that some civilians may also die.

It is not only government that has duties and responsiblities, Mr Cameron. Yours is to oppose – for which activity the taxpayer gives you several million pounds as "short" money - and you are not doing it. When we hear of more troops being butchered in their unprotected Land Rovers, therefore, I think it would be entirely fair to lay some of the blame at your door.

* The reference is to the website. Although the lead story on the web is almost invariably the front page in the print edition, strangely the story did not appear in the print edition at all and any reference to it disappeared from the website (although the link is still live).

COMMENT THREAD

Going backwards

When the news started coming in yesterday about the raid by coalition forces in Basra, details were sparse and I thought it better to wait until we knew more.

A day later and we are not much the wiser. The whole of the publicity seems to have been generated, and is therefore controlled, by the Army. We know what the Army wishes us to know – no more and no less.

One should not be too churlish I suppose. If the Army is to be believed, five "terrorist leaders" were captured, together with a quantity of arms and explosives and some documents of "intelligence value". However, that does seem somewhat small compensation for a raid described as the biggest military operation since the end of the war on 1 May 2003.

Altogether, over 1000 men took part, including a 250-strong Danish contingent, deploying 14 Challenger II MBTs, 28 Warriors, an unknown number of light armoured vehicles ("Snatch" Land Rovers and Danish MOWAG "Eagles", based on the Humve chassis - illustrated right) and ten assault boats. In support were USAF F-15s which carried out overflights as a diversion and "a show of force".

Mercifully, unlike the 24 November raid, no one was killed. That alone may have justified the scale of the force, which was not unopposed.

But if the size of the force deployed was not excessive (under the circumstances), there was certainly something so gloriously OTT about the Telegraph coverage. It not only included a huge map, occupying the best part of half a page, but was announced by a headline spanning two pages reading: "'Armoured fist' smashes into Basra at dawn, capturing five terrorist leaders." One suspects that the writer (our old friend Thomas Harding) and the editorial team harbour secret ambitions of being comic-strip writers.

Behind the MoD-supplied details (and photographs), the problem is, as always, that the newspaper presents a breathless view of events which avoids any depth, understanding or analysis. This is not what one would expect from grown-up journalists.

Any such analysis, of course, would not necessarily accompany this piece – and we learnt not from this but from the BBC that one of the objectives of the raid was to deal with "criminals" who were mounting attacks on British bases. Interestingly, the Telegraph's location map miss-positions the Shatt al-Arab Hotel base. It shows it closer to Basra Palace than anywhere, rather than its correct place – well within mortar range of al Harthah. And, as recently as Wednesday, the base was at the receiving end of yet another mortar attack. Was al Harthah the source?

So, here we go again. In June we wrote a piece noting that we have been here before. We remarked on how between 1972 and 1980, mine protection technology emerged, which has been refined and developed as the basis of today's blast-protected vehicles.

But, if the colonials were there before, we were there even before that. A remarkable website shows that in Oman between 1970 and 1973, British forces were operating modified 4-tonners with armour plate fitted to deflect blast from mine strikes.

But even more fascinating is the website of Barry Dunning recounting his exploits in the 10th Royal Hussars (Middle East Land Forces) in Aden in 1965, riding in a Saladin armoured car.

As a boy I recall this vehicle (illustrated). Built on the same chassis as the Saracen armoured personnel carrier, it was specifically designed for mine protection and could continue operating with any one wheel blown off by a mine. For their party trick, Alvis, the manufacturers, used to drive the vehicle round a test track on demonstrations, with one of the front wheels missing.

Anyhow, Dunning writes:

The 12th of September is a day I will never forget!! Coming back from Dhala we went on ahead to pick up the Infantry whom were up on the ridges (to cover the convoy through the wadi). We had just passed Mile Stone 36 when we hit two anti-tank mines and 25lb of plastic explosives. It picked the 14 tons of armoured car and threw us about 25 feet into the air, leaving a crater 30 foot wide and 10 foot deep. We were very lucky the armour did not split open as we were fully loaded with all our shells and bullets... It would have been a real fireworks display if they had gone off, and we were lucky no one was hurt.

Mick had a cut on his cheek where the Browning rounds wrapped around his face. Geordie hit his face on the front driver hatch as he was thrown forwards. It knocked him silly for a moment and he had a bloody nose. Because of the shock the medics could not take any chances with us so they flew us out on an Army Scout helicopter back to camp. The Saladin was brought back on a low loader.

And above right is a close-up picture of the front wheel bay, which took the full force of the explosion. Now imagine if that had been a "Snatch" Land Rover.

As relevant to the predicament of our troops in Basra, however, are the experiences of British forces attached to the Sultan of Oman's army in 1970. Amongst other things we see in another fascinating website is a Saracen APC pressed into duty as a mine clearance vehicle at RAF Salalah. One feature of this vehicle is that it could be driven easily in reverse, a feature used in the illustration, where it is rigged to push a mine roller. Interestingly, we also see sand-filled 40-gallon drums stacked up as blast protection – the predecessor to the "Hesco" containers currently used. There is nothing new under the sun.

Just as relevant though was that the base came under continuous mortar attack. To counter this threat we see the predecessor of the current Mamba and Cobra counter battery sets – the "Green Archer" counter mortar radar in place (in the foreground). Behind the radar is a 25-pounder in a gun pit, ready to return fire once the mortar location has been identified.

But it did not stop there. Out on the tarmac were pairs of Strikemaster light jets, aircraft based on the then RAF basic trainer, the Jet Provost. Despite their provenance as trainers, these were formidable ground attack aircraft and were, in the hands of their RAF pilots, potent weapons.


And, of course, there were the helicopters, also on quick alert ready to transport Omani Scouts to a trouble spot and deal with the insurgents - yes insurgents - who were seeking to overthrow the government.

These, being the Omani's choice - and free from the strictures of the RAF and the then MoD (which hardly seems to have changed) were Bell UH1Ds, the famous "Hueys" of VietNam fame. Now, of course, the RAF has a few, in the form of the Augusta Bell 412, but only for air-sea rescue in Cyprus and for training aircrew. But the Army is not allowed to have them.

There we have it. Over thirty years ago, nearly all the elements of COIN warfare were in place, right down to the mine/blast protected vehicles, which are now no longer on charge. In many respects, therefore - with our inadequate "Snatch" Land Rovers instead of the Saracens (which were also used in Northern Ireland), the absence of light (or any) ground attack capability and an acute shortage of helicopters - we are less well equipped than were our own and even the Omani armies all those years ago.

But there another major difference. Unlike Oman with its wide-open spaces (more like Afghanistan in some respects), weapons like mortars and Katyushas are being fired from highly congested urban areas, with the terrorists using civilians as a screen.

To deal with that, we have other weapons - the C-RAM (and even that is based on 70s technology) and UAVs armed with precision, small-warhead guided weapons. We have no C-RAM though and, as to our UAVs, we have none capable of being used for this function and our attempts at flying off the wrongly-named Phoenix (it does not rise from the ashes) have met with embarassing failure (illustrated above).

For want of the right equipment, therefore, it seems we must send a 1000 men, backed by tanks, armoured vehicles and aircraft smashing into Basra at dawn, all to arrest five men, before scuttling back to our fortifed bases and the daily barrage of mortars and rockets.

Oddly, Gateway Pundit on Friday hailed as "good news" the optimistic account of the situation in Basra by Iraqi-American Haider Ajina, citing Major General Ali Hamadi chairman of the tri-security agencies in Basra. He claims that operation Sinbad, for security and reconstruction, has achieved important results.

Yeah right. That's why we need a small army to arrest five men, while all our bases are under constant daily attack. Yet, in June 2003, our troops were walking the streets in soft hats. Every which way, in my book, we're going backwards.

COMMENT THREAD

Where were you?

Yes, Mr Bush, we know it is bad - we've been saying so for a long time. Yes, we agree with you when you tell our prime minister, Tony Blair, that "we need a new approach". And yes, we entirely agree with General Sir Mike Jackson (now retired) that it would be "morally wrong" to pull out of Iraq at the moment.

And we even agree with Jackson when he accused the government in his speech of neglecting soldiers and of "asking too much" of the armed forces.

But what we also want to know is why it has been left until now? What have our professionals and analysts being doing all these years and, in particular, what was the professional head of the Army doing in August 2003?

This blog, of course, didn't exist back then. But General Sir Mike Jackson – or "Macho Jacko" as he was already known - was Chief of General Staff, the professional head of the Army. He had been appointed on 1 January 2003, he had seen the successful assault on Basra by British troops and then enjoyed the short-lived fruits of victory with the official termination of hostilities in Iraq on 1 May 2003.

Then, on 14 August - two days after Basra had been swept by organised riots, with mobs protesting against the lack of fuel and electricity in the city – when British forces were shot at and returned fire, killing at least one Iraqi - Captain David Jones was travelling from Basra with his driver in a clearly marked military ambulance (pictured above left), conveying a soldier to the military hospital in the Shaibah logistics base outside the city. He never arrived. Shortly after 9am British time, the vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, killing Captain Jones and injuring the other two soldiers, and badly damaging the vehicle (illustrated right).

One national newspaper at the time reported that this had been the most serious attack on British forces since six military policemen had been killed in Majar al-Kabir, north of Basra, on 24 June. Furthermore, as this was the very first roadside bomb attack on a British military vehicle, the fear was that the "honeymoon" was over – that British troops in the southern, mostly Shia, part of Iraq, were now to be targeted by guerrilla attacks. Up to date, these had been reserved for American troops in the ethnic Sunni area around Baghdad.

As reported by The Scotsman, the BBC had defence analyst Paul Beaver saying that the attack had been very different to any incident dealt with by British forces in Iraq before then. "This looks like a step up in operations by a group you can only call terrorists," he told BBC News. "This is very much a pre-meditated act of terrorism. There's no doubt at all what we're actually seeing here is someone making capital out of the fact there is now a greater awareness of discontent in the Basra area."

The newspaper suggested that the campaign in Iraq had "entered a dangerous new phase".

One swallow does not make a summer though, but any thoughts General Sir Mike Jackson might have had of disagreeing must have been disabused by reports of an incident on 23 August. Three soldiers from the Royal Military Police - Major Matthew Titchener, Co Sergeant Major Colin Wall and Corporal Dewi Pritchard - were killed in an ambush in central Basra.

Witnesses said the RMPs were riding in a sports utility vehicle in a routine two-vehicle convoy and came under small-arms fire from an unknown number of men in a pick-up truck at around 8.30am. The soldiers returned fire, but appear to have been killed either by a grenade thrown from the other vehicle or when their own vehicle crashed into a wall.

Then, on 27 August, Fusilier Russell Beeston, a Territorial Army soldier in the 52nd Lowland Regiment, was killed on after a crowd surrounded his patrol vehicle in Ali As Sharqi, southern Iraq, and opened fire with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. He was 26 and from Govan. Shortly afterwards, on 7 September, a roadside bomb in Basra exploded when a British diplomatic convoy was passing killing four people of unknown nationalities, wrecking the car and flipping it upside down. When a later explosion killed ten more, there can have been no doubt. The honeymoon was definitely over and an insurgency was in progress.

Now, in his speech entitled, "The Defence Of The Realm In The 21st Century", General Sir Mike Jackson tells us his lecture was "a way of taking stock". He has been considering "what may be demanded for the defence of the Realm in this uncertain century; and how ready we are for those demands."

But he adds: "We also need to be honest as to how well we are meeting these demands now," effectively admitting that we are not doing enough. He says: "we must do better in this complex situation, faced as we are today by a determined and ruthless enemy".

That "determined and ruthless enemy" was to continue slaughtering British troops. But, in August and September and points thereafter, Jackson was not only thinking about the war in Iraq. As befits the professional head of the Army, he was thinking in grander terms, of the longer term. "How should the United Kingdom position and defend itself?" he was asking.

He doesn't actually tell us the timeline but we know from other events that this was the thinking going on in the MoD. The arch Europhile secretary of state for defence, Geoff Hoon, had his own political priorities. They were to put clothes on Tony Blair's 1999 initiative, making good his St Malo promises to co-operate with Jacques Chirac, building a European Rapid Reaction Force.

Through 2003, as the attacks on British troops intensified, Blair's high-level political initiative was filtering down to Army level for implementation. General Sir Mike Jackson was thus required to look at the broader strategy - a European strategy to balance the US-orientated Iraqi strategy. As conveyed to us in the Dimbleby lecture, he rationalised it thus:

The UK cannot isolate itself from the wider world, so I'm not at all sure that it is an available strategy, even if we wanted to choose it. That said, I think perhaps the most fundamental question, is the relationship, the strategic relationship, between the United States and Europe. ...

And the UK's position as between the US and Europe has been a dilemma for this country for many decades. A black or white choice, one way or the other, would be fatally flawed. The fate of this country, given its geography and its history, is to wrestle with the conundrum that whilst we sit unequally in geographical distance between the United States and the mainland continent, of Europe, the political distance is a much more equal proposition.

We had our "special" relationship with the US but, "we are also part of the continent of Europe, and a member of the continent's polity, the European Union." Thus said the General, "...it is inevitable that there will be an ebb and flow to the UK's relationship with these two centres of gravity." We could not sit on the fence, he mused. "We are so closely involved strategically with both the United States and with Europe, that in our strategic posture we must embrace both."

So, instead of concentrating on dealing with the war in Iraq, with its special equipment needs, in November 2003 he palmed the troops off with second-hand "Snatch" Land Rovers, drawn from stocks held in store in Belfast. That done, he then devoted his energies to feeding the European fantasy, as he set about reorganising the Army to fit in with the demands of the ERRF.

The rest, as they say, is history. The attacks continued, "Snatches" burned and soldiers died.

Except that the history has yet to be written. Thus, in his Dimbleby lecture, General Sir Mike Jackson put in his bid for his version. "We could well be asking too much of our Army," he says.

It all comes down to a question of balance: balance between capabilities within the defence budget - how much of this, how much of that; current operations against what may be required in the future; not only current operations, but current training which is the investment for our capability in the future; people against technology - that's pay for example, accommodation standards for example, against current and future equipment.

This should not be a dilemma incidentally, this should not be a zero sum or an either/or. We should be able to provide what is required for soldiers to be fully and properly equipped, thoroughly trained, decently paid, and, together with their families, decently housed. They deserve nothing less.

So they do, General Sir Michael Jackson, GCB, CBE, DSO., so they do. At a time when even the Americans were beginning to realise that better equipment, like the superb RG-31, was needed (even available as an ambulance), why weren't our soldiers "fully and properly equipped" instead of being palmed off with second-hand Land Rovers?

So, when the real history comes to be written, it will include the question: "Where were you, General Jackson, when the Army really needed you?"

COMMENT THREAD

Two soldiers lightly hurt

So reads the headline (or part of it) from the Calgary Sun, Canada, with a full account in CTVNews, its report bearing the headline "Canadian convoy attacked on 'Ambush Alley'".

We are, as you might imagine, writing about Kandahar city again, where there has been yet another suicide bomb attack, this time with a fortuitous outcome. In fact, "fortuitous" barely begins to describe it. One casualty, Cpl. Robert Chafe, suffered a cut on the side of his mouth and on the little finger of his left hand. The other, Master Cpl. Greg Keeping, was slightly hurt in the leg.

But we are doing much more than just writing about this incident. In this post, we shall try (and probably fail) to pull together some of the many ideas and arguments being explored as to how we should fight (instead of losing) our battles against insurgents.

For the moment, though, we are able to start the discussion with a remarkable photograph because, riding in the convoy was a Canadian TV crew. It was just two vehicles behind the targeted truck and able to capture the incident. The first picture (top left) shows the scene seconds after the bomber had struck. This second one (right) shows the suicide bomber's vehicle, illustrating the force of the explosion to which the troops were exposed.

The third picture of our sequence shows the truck that was hit. It can immediately be seen that the cab is armoured, with a heavy armoured glass windscreen, which undoubtedly saved the lives of the men behind it.

Not so the lives of two Afghani civilians who had the misfortune to be beside the truck when the bomb went off - a graphic illustration of the effect of the bomb on unprotected people and, crucially, yet more evidence of the indiscriminate nature of the bombing. The Taliban have shown time and again that they are entirely unconcerned about civilian casualties, be they men, women or children.

The fourth picture in this sequence shows the convoy in a long-shot, the composition of which indicates why the truck was targeted. Bombers are known to go for the most vulnerable targets and here it can be seen that the convoy escorts are the now-famous RG-31s. Attacking these would be fruitless. The other vehicle in view is an armoured Bison APC, a type that has proved vulnerable to attack when the crew ride with opened hatches - but not on this occasion. This time, in a line of unpromising targets, the truck must have looked the most vulnerable.

Compare and contrast with the unarmoured British Land Rover targeted by a suicide bomber on Sunday, an incident in which three Royal Marines were injured - one seriously. This shot shows an Afghani policeman attempting to drive the vehicle after the attack, demonstrating - as indeed does the visible condition of the vehicle - that the damage was relatively modest. Yet, in the absence of effective armour, far greater injuries were caused than in the attack than on the armoured Canadian convoy.

This does point up an issue that we have rehearsed time and time again - that we must have more and better armoured vehicles. But we are not talking about any armoured vehicles. They need to be designed specifically to deal with the technical threat of improvised explosive devices, whether in the form of roadside or suicide bombs.

That much is evident from a less happy scenario - another suicide bomb attack in Kandahar, this one on 27 November when two Canadian soldiers riding in a Bison APC were killed. The Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) - as it is known - is a "conventional" wheeled armoured vehicle, one designed for the European battlefield. Its fatal weakness - in common with most vehicles of the type - is that it is not designed to be operated in a fully closed down condition for long periods of time. Visibility is restricted and crew comfort (especially when it is hot) suffers. By any measure, this equipment is far from ideal for use as convoy escorts or as patrols in counter-insurgency operations.

On the other hand, yesterday, we read reports of yet another Royal Marine being killed (the 42nd British servicemen to die in Afghanistan) and one injured, but this time in what amounts to a conventional attack. The casualties arose when UK troops mounted an offensive on a Taliban-held valley, attacking the village of Garmser. Despite being elite troops, however, backed by airstrikes and artillery fire during the 10-hour battle, they were forced to withdraw after the Taliban launched a ferocious counter-attack with heavy weapons and tried to outflank the British troops.

Here, though, the Canadians - who have scored so well by using RG-31 blast-protected vehicles for their patrols - are again ahead of the game. Having been fully committed to offensive operations throughout the summer, they have learnt from their experiences and introduced Leopard tanks into the equation. On the other hand, the British - with theoretically a more experienced, elite cadre of troops - are committing what is in fact light infantry to a conventional attack, without armoured support. They are perhaps forgetting that the tank, in its original inception, was an infantry support weapon.

What emerges from this is that, effectively, we need two armies - one capable of fighting a largely conventional war and the other specifically equipped to fight insurgents in a mainly urban environment. In equipment and and function, the two roles are so different that they hardly seem compatible.

Looked at this way, one is able to see how ill-equipped the British are. In Iraq, they have a largely conventional army, designed - as we have observed before - to fend off mass armoured attacks by the Warsaw Pact in northern Europe, augmented by equipment developed for dealing with terrorism in Northern Ireland. Quite how inadequate this mix has become is apparent from these photographs taken last Sunday in Basra.

Where once we used to be able to send out foot patrols, conveyed to their locations in unarmoured Land Rovers, we have graduated to 3-vehicle armoured "Snatch" Land Rover patrols and now, as the security situation has deteriorated, the numbers have had to increase. But, the Land Rovers themselves, which were once used as convoy escorts, must now themselves be escorted by Warrior Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicles (MICVs) front and rear.

On the other hand, for offensive operations in Aghanistan, such as the Garmser attack described above, the Warriors would be ideal, especially if they were backed by their natural partners, the Challenger II Main Battle Tank. That is not to say, of course, that tanks would be suitable for all operations, but commanders are not being given an option. There are no heavy tanks available to the British.

Apart from a few light tanks, the only tracked armoured vehicles issued to the Royal Marines in Afghanistan are the BvS10 "Vikings", delivered with great fanfare in October. Although superb cross country machines and fully amphibious (the latter capability not greatly in demand in land-locked Afghanistan), they do not even begin to compare with the Warrior, much less a Challenger II. As a result, not only did the Marines take casualties yesterday - they also failed to achieve their objectives.

Taking stock.

In order to win, I wrote in an earlier post, we must first stop losing. And the first thing in this context we must do is ensure that our own casualties are minimised. The number of deaths might be minuscule compared with the First and Second World Wars, and even Korea, but such is the sensitivity of this issue that even a few hundred deaths might create a political head of steam which forces our withdrawal from active theatres.

No one is naïve enough to believe that we can fight wars without taking casualties but, what we suggested in earlier pieces (here, here and here) is that the tolerance is lower when the war is unpopular and deaths are seen as unnecessary. Too many of the deaths we have recorded over term seem definitely to come into the "unnecessary" category - not least those arising from the recent attack on the boat using the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Thus we are seeing headlines announcing that troops have been killed, when we need to see more in the manner of the title of this piece, "two soldiers lightly hurt".

Yet, instead of striving for such headlines, this government seems to be going out of its way to prosecute its wars in a way which will ensure that the unnecessary deaths continue. In many respects, we are but one military disaster away from total failure and the government seems to be behaving as if it actually wants failure. Can this really be incompetence?

Mulling over this, I happened today on a piece from the North West Evening Mail which recounted the experiences of "Barrow soldier" Lance Corporal James Larsen, recently returned from Basra after serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. While based at the Shatt al-Arab Hotel, he claims to have survived more than 1,000 bomb attacks on his base and had been just 70 metres from a colleague who was killed by a mortar bomb. He adds:

My friends have been thrown on top of me and I have been mortared from 25 metres away when the tent got hit. We had breeze blocks going round our beds. I would roll off the bed and go under it next to the breeze blocks. I soon stopped sleeping on the bed and just lay with the breeze blocks.

We were already aware of the situation at the other main base within the city limits, Basra Palace, which even this week was attacked again with Katyusha rockets. Larsen's experience confirms that Shatt al-Arab Hotel is also under continuous attack.

Yet, although both bases are defensible and, as we pointed out, a range of technology and weaponary exists to counter mortar and rocket attacks, there seems to be a wilful refusal on the part of the British government to provide the wherewithal for defensive action. Contrary to American practice, where helicopters are often scrambled and even British practice in Afghanistan, where Harrier jets have been despatched to seek out mortars, the British military in Iraq seem to take an entirely passive line on such attacks.

What must be done?

The Iraq Study Group Report, out today, tells us: "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating". It adds that, "There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved".

The thrust of the report, however, is towards seeking political solutions to the crisis, on the oft-argued basis that there can be no military solution. However, while it may be true that the military cannot provide the solutions, in the final analysis, without the military, there is no prospect of a political solution. The military underwrites the security to an extent where the political process can develop and take root.

The presence of the military can only be sustained if casualties are kept down. We have no idea what the tipping point might be, which might trigger a political crisis, but it must make sense to take every technically achievable step necessary to increase force protection. We need to see substantial improvements in base protection and in the protection of mobile forces. And then, in the context of a more aggressive approach to attackers, our forces must have the capability to take the battle to the attackers, responding to them with lethal force when they dare to attempt killing our men and women.

But, gradually, that writ must also extend to all the security forces. As in Northern Ireland, where a primary task of the Army was to protect the civilian police, we must ensure that co-operating with the occupying powers is not a death sentence - as it so often is at the moment.

Furthermore, what applies to Iraq must also, to a very great extent, apply to Afghanistan. There, the Taliban has been quite explicit. It aims to kill our people and Nato troops in general, to break our will. In that sense, the currency of this dispute, there as in Iraq, is the lives of our soldiers. Keeping them alive, in theatre while they are actively carrying out their protective roles, is itself a victory. It sends a message to the terrorists that they cannot win.

...to be continued

COMMENT THREAD

The Egyptian paradox

"Britain gives go-ahead to GMO potato trials", says Reuters. The Press Association, via The Guardian, headlines: "GM potato trials given go-ahead" and tells us that, "The Government has granted permission for genetically modified potatoes to be grown in the UK."

The BBC Website has "GM potato trials given go-ahead" and tells us that, "A plan to grow genetically modified potatoes on two trial sites in England has been approved by the government." The Times gives us, "Trials for GM potatoes agreed" and its story starts: "The Government has agreed to new GM trials for potatoes."

Then we get The New Scientist with: "Gene-modified potatoes get trial go-ahead", adding, "The UK government has approved the growing of genetically modified potatoes in two field trials." The Farmers Weekly though – as you might expect – is more specific, giving you the name of the ministry, declaring: "DEFRA approves BASF's application to plant genetically modified potatoes".

The plants, we are told, will be grown next year on land owned by a scientific research station in Cambridgeshire, and on land secured by the biotechnology firm BASF Plant Sciences in Derbyshire.

Then to sweep up, in this sample of news coverage, we have the dedicated political website, Politics.co.uk, which also refers to the ministry. It's headline is, "Defra approves GM potato trials" and the strap reads: "Defra approves the first GM crop trials for three years".

Technically, all these media are right. The government, through its "Competent Authority", the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has approved trials on GM potatoes. But what none of them say it that the UK government had no choice about this, thus omitting to mention the "elephant in the room", the European Union.

The point is that the approval of the "deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms" is an exclusive EU competence under Directive 2001/18/EC. It was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in February 2001 and entered into force on 17 October 2002, since when member states are required to process applications in accordance with the Directive. In particular, Article 6 refers:

5. The competent authority shall acknowledge the date of receipt of the notification and, having considered, where appropriate, any observations by other Member States made in accordance with Article 11, shall respond in writing to the notifier within 90 days of receipt of the notification by either:

(a) indicating that it is satisfied that the notification is in compliance with this Directive and that the release may proceed; or

(b) indicating that the release does not fulfil the conditions of this Directive and that notification is therefore rejected.

In effect, the member state is merely acting as an agent for the community. Its job is assess whether or not the test protocol complies with the Directive. If it does, the application must be approved – the member state has no discretion in this. Only if it does not, can the application be rejected.

Quite how the news should be reported is a moot point but an accurate or balanced report would include reference to the EU dimension, in terms: UK finds application in conformity with EU law and therefor is required to give a go ahead to the tests.

At least that would put into context the comments of the Friends of the Earth representative, who said the trials posed a "significant contamination threat" to future potato crops. “The government should promote safe and sustainable agriculture, not this half-baked GM potato plan," said Clare Oxborrow.

It would also put into context the statement by environment minister Ian Pearson. He says: "Our top priority on this issue remains protecting consumers and the environment, and a rigorous independent assessment has concluded that these trials do not give rise to any safety concerns.

Neither mentions the EU. Neither acknowledges that the government has not choice.

Perhaps Oxborrow's ignorance is forgivable. She is, after all, only an environmental campaigner. But the minister and the media should know better. He and the Guardian, the BBC, The Times, and all the others are just like the felukka.

Why?

They are all in de Nile.

COMMENT THREAD

The new Byzantium?

The fall of Constantinople in May 1453 – an event that even a pro-Turk like myself cannot help remembering as the Pope visits the Blue Mosque – destroyed the Second Rome. Two of the previous candidates for the Third Rome, Serbia and Bulgaria, had been defeated before. That left Muscovy, soon to be Russia, as the only possible heir to the two Roman empires.

This claim was strengthened by the fact that Ivan III (the Great), Grand Duke of Muscovy, the first to style himself as the Grand Duke of All the Russias, had married the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor, Sophia Palaelogue.

The idea, as so many others, had been brought to Russia from the no longer existent Balkan Orthodox kingdoms by Cyprian, a Bulgarian priest who became Metropolitan of Moscow in 1381. But it was finally crystallized by the monk Filofei in a letter written to Ivan’s son, Grand Duke Vasili III of All the Russias in 1510:

Two Romes have fallen. There stands the Third Rome. There will be no fourth.

And so a great myth was born: Russia’s and the Orthodox Church’s missionary, God-bearing role. Together with the strong and not always justified sense of victimhood (all the Orthodox peoples, particularly the Slav ones, gave as good as they got throughout history) this has caused a great deal of trouble in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

There is, however, another aspect to Byzantine history, one covered at length by Procopius and Gibbon: the labyrinthine intrigue laced by extensive usage of poison when other methods had been exhausted. For obvious reasons, it is this aspect that has been pre-eminent in my mind in the last few days.

There seems to be something desperately wrong with events as they have unfolded with Russia. On the one hand there have been attempts to create an agreement with the European Union that have, for the moment, foundered on the Russian government’s traditional inability to negotiate without trying to bully everyone who gets in the way. Even relations with Ukraine could be settled in some other manner but President Putin seems unable to understand that it is now an independent country, which does not want to be part of his single economic and security space. The same applies to Georgia.

Nor is it a particularly sensible idea to suspend import of food from Poland and threaten to suspend it from the whole of EU when Romania and Bulgaria join on January 1, 2007 because of allegedly low hygiene standards. They are almost certainly low but nobody who has ever been on a Russian food market outside the tourist areas can help laughing at the Russian government’s supposed concern.

Added to which there have been the unfortunate poisonings. First, Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB and FSB officer who had written about the alleged involvement of the FSB in the explosions of the apartment blocks that served as a pretext for the renewal of the ferocious war in Chechnya and propelled Putin, until then a barely known apparatchik, to the presidency.

Now we have news of an apparent attempt to poison Yegor Gaidar, former Prime Minister under Yeltsin, architect of the semi-successful development of Russia into a democratic, capitalist state and, more recently, the Director of a free-market think-tank in Moscow, the Institute of Economic Transition. Gaidar was taken ill on a visit to Ireland and has been in hospital ever since, having spent three hours unconscious. The first suggestion that it was food poisoning has remained unproven and the doctors are puzzled.

Why Gaidar? That is the question most of us asking. Litvinenko’s murder is, at least, comprehensible. In the first place he was “one of us” and turned to the enemy, providing it with information. The Cheka and its many successors, most recently the FSB, have always made it clear that people such as Litvinenko were high on the list of those they would “get” if for no other reason but to teach the others a lesson.

Besides, Litvinenko produced some very valuable details in his account of those explosions. If, on top of that, he really was investigating Anna Politkovskaya’s murder (though what he could do from London is a mystery) then he would be seen as a serious threat. So, why not get rid of him and in the most painful way imaginable? That’ll learn him and anybody else who might consider following his example.

Gaidar, however, had never been in the KGB but was and is an economist. There may be some settling of old debts going on but he has not really been all that prominent for some time. Even his criticisms of Putin have been muted and rarely reported, unlike those of Andreir Illarionov, for instance. The latter, until a few months ago nominally Putin’s adviser, had better watch his step. There are a couple of young children there, too.

It may be that the attempt on Gaidar, if that is what it was, happened precisely because of his relative unimportance. In Russia they know who he is and the two poisonings could be seen as a threat: “And don’t think you can escape us by going abroad, either.”

It could be sheer incompetence, as well. After all, the amount of radiation left behind by the Russian assassination team does not argue highly professional behaviour. One must not forget that the Russian secret service is no more efficient than anybody else’s, just nastier.

The order for Litvinenko’s murder may have been given some time ago and they caught up with him at an inconvenient moment but as the order had not been rescinded, the case went marching on.

The Guardian maintains that it has learnt from some British intelligence sources (who dem?) that a “rogue element” in the FSB was probably responsible for Litvinenko’s murder as Putin’s government can be exonerated. Myself, I wouldn’t go as far as that. How can one possibly exonerate Putin’s government? Besides, that is simply rephrasing the question: which rogue elements and why? As for the difficulties of acquiring Polonium-210, that is tosh. It seems to have industrial uses and is, therefore, available in various ways. Besides, it is some time since we could have said with any certainty that Russian nuclear laboratories were so secure that only a few numbered personnel had access to them.

For all of that, the theory that the murder and the possible attempt were carried out by the FSB is not to be discarded completely. It is possible that the disintegration of Russian society where politicians, bankers and businessmen are routinely murdered (and that ignores the killing of Politkovskaya, which must have been ordered from on high), where the first deputy prosecutor-general gives it as his opinion that the equivalent of $240 billion is given in bribes to officials a year (two and a half times the state’s total revenues) may well have prompted some high-ranking officers to take action that would undermine Vladimir Putin, whom they may well see as responsible for the sorry state of affairs.

Or the boot is on the other foot. Putin is not supposed to stand in the 2008 presidential elections and cannot do so unless there is a change in the constitution. He has said several times that this will not happen. But what if in the course of 2007 the country enters a severe crisis, to do with the economy or social matters or law and order? Would the people of Russia not then demand that the constitution be changed and the strong boss (khozyain) would go on being the president?

After all, that is, mutatis mutandis, what Vasili III’s son, Ivan IV (the Terrible), did in 1564/5. Incidentally, the behaviour of the Russian army in Chechnya throughout the conflict reminds one of the behaviour of Ivan’s army in Kazan and Greater Novgorod, not to mention the behaviour of the oprichniki, the praetorian guard or early version of secret police across the whole of Russia.

The question is, do we still see Russia as a foremost ally in the fight against terror and a useful partner in the development of energy policy?