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Defence

I will in a moment. The Government's failure fully to fund their SDR is only one item in a long litany of failures. The true story behind the invasion of Iraq is now being told. I am sure that the whole country is looking forward to the Prime Minister's evidence this Friday, but what we already know is quite shocking. Not only did the Government fail to plan properly for the post-conflict period in Iraq, but it is now well known that what most of us suspected all along is true: that troops were sent into Iraq without proper equipment. We now know that during the early planning phases of the Iraq war, the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Boyce, was blocked by the then Defence Secretary from organising crucial logistics, in case it sent the wrong political message: that we were preparing for war. In the words of Lord Boyce,""I was not allowed to speak, for example, to the Chief of Defence Logistics—I was prevented from doing that by the Secretary of State for Defence, because of the concern about it becoming public knowledge that we were planning for a military contribution which might…be…unhelpful in the activity…in the United Nations to secure"" a Security Council resolution.