More on Mobile Coffins
March 7, 2009 by Ken
Filed under Political Humbug
I do not quite understand why the today the Times should be revisiting an extremely important but nevertheless such an old story as last Octobers resignation of Major Sebastian Morley.
Major Morley was at the time the most senior reservist SAS officer in Afghanistan, and resigned because army commanders and Whitehall officials ignored his warnings that “unsafe” vehicles would lead to the deaths of soldiers.
Perhaps the answer is as the Times reports that
Major Morley accused Quentin Davies, the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, of telling an “unacceptable lie” when he said after the deaths that commanders could choose which vehicles they used in combat.
“A government minister is on record telling a lie about four deaths, and this is unacceptable. For him to reverse his position now is too little too late.
“To accuse an operational commander of having a choice, and for that man to have made a choice that led to death, is to accuse him of negligence.
“There was no other vehicle to use. The simple truth is that the protection of these vehicles is inadequate and this led to the unnecessary deaths.”
Dr Richard North has been blogging about these unsafe Snatch Land Rovers for quite some time on both EU Referendum and Defence of the Realm
On the 19th June 2008 he wrote the following:
As to the “Snatch” Land Rover, yesterday when we received the reports of the deaths was the second anniversary of our post, pointing out the dangerous vulnerability of these vehicles.
There is, therefore, no excuse, no excuse at all. For two years (well over, in fact), the MoD and the Army have known that “Snatch” Land Rovers are entirely unsuitable for counterinsurgency operations, and they have had two years warning that the Taleban were going to adopt ambush tactics using bombs and mines.
The answer was then and is now, what have come to be known as MRAPs – Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. At the Eurosatory exhibition yesterday, it was clear that militaries throughout the world have got the message … a small sample of MRAPs seen yesterday follows (and yes, one is a “Panther – even that is better than a “Snatch” if used as an ordinary patrol vehicle).
That we have not enough of them, and are still using “Snatch” Land Rovers, is inexcusable. The people, at all levels, who were involved – by act of default – in failing properly to equip our Army are in part responsible for sending these four soldiers to their deaths. They are stupid, malign fools.
