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Today George Osborne can show if it 's really brave, stimulated dogma and cutting billions are spent on law and order
Who spends the money? Politicians. Do they always spend as wisely as they know how? Not at all. In many fields politicians of all parties conspire to spend wilfully, knowing full well that they are wasting considerable sums that will do no good to anyone. They hope they are at least buying votes, but there is little evidence that their profligacy even succeeds in this. Law and order and drugs prohibition are just two of many examples where pursuit of populism trumps spending money well.
We shall see today if cuts fall on some of the most useless expenditure. Will George Osborne listen to Ken Clarke's sensible comments on the wastefulness of short prison sentences? Will he listen to the Prison Governors Association calling for abandoning £4bn of prison building? Not many public servants are asking for less. Osborne would do well to study Labour's law and order misspending. Tony Blair, riding to power with his "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", made sure nobody would ever out-tough Labour. Never mind the evidence â€" all that mattered was what worked politically. But did it? In the end Labour chased its own tail, stirring more fear of crime instead of reassuring.
Labour appears to have done well. When Jacqui Smith boasted there was less risk of becoming a crime victim than at any timesince records began, it is not far away. At Prima labor ', crime has decreased by about 40% of property crimes was two-fold. Last year, violent crime fell by 6%, which marks a 20-year low in the murder.
In Labour's time prison numbers rose by two thirds â€" now at more than 85,000. Re-offending is as high, the time prisoners spend usefully in workshops and training is an hour less than in 1996, while four out of five prisoners read below the 11-year-old standard. No more criminals have been found guilty, but sentences became tougher: in 1995 a first-time burglar had a 27% chance of jail, but that has almost doubled. Labour's Criminal Justice Act in 2003 ordained longer sentences, while asbos and other licences led to more people being jailed for breaching them. Lord Igor Judge famously condemned Labour's creation of 3,500 new offences in 50 criminal justice bills. Politicians love the police â€" and how Labour boasted of 15,000 more on the beat with 16,000 community support officers.
All this was expensive, averaging more than £41,000 per prisoner and with police costs rising to £17.5bn â€" proportionally more than the US. The UK is now among the highest law and order spenders in the European Union.
So was money well spent? Just about any research from criminologists, including the government's own research department, finds virtually no correlation between numbers in prison or numbers of police and amount of crime. Similar countries with more or fewer police and prisons show little correlation with crime rates. Crime has dropped everywhere across Europe, the US and Australia, regardless of policies. The economy and demography proved more powerful than law and order policy. If Labour made a difference, it was the New Deal jobs for the young, more staying on in school for longer, and the education maintenance allowance giving poorer pupils pocket money.
But the law and order wars between parties continue unabated. Lib Dems always call for more bobbies on the beat â€" though they know it makes no difference to crime, nor to fear of crime. Tory election posters accused Gordon Brown of letting prisoners out early on tags: he did, by an insignificant 17 days. Labour has already started to accuse the Tories of cuts that will mean fewer police â€" while knowing perfectly well that police numbers make little difference. Almost everything politicians say about law and order is bogus â€" and pricey.
What would it take to de-escalate crime wars and save the billions spent on political posturing?
On the Nixon-in-China principle, it would take a Tory government with a wise old justice minister like Clarke to start telling the public the truth about what works â€" or at least what doesn't. It would require Labour to grow up and respond sensibly to Clarke's proposals to end short prison sentences, without cheap point-scoring. If Labour expects to return to power, it should encourage rethinking on useless crime policies. If history is a guide, property crime will rise, with nearly a million young people already unemployed: the answer is not more punishment but more jobs â€" and that is where Labour should pitch its tent.
over crass abuse of evidence. Can this government be more rational?
Cuts such as these require real political bravery. There has been talk of a "masochism strategy", but masochism begins at home â€" with cuts that mean risks for politicians, not for others. It would require honesty with the voters, who wouldn't like it. Don't hold your breath, there is no straw in the wind to suggest the coalition has the nerve. But when judging where the cuts fall today remember the monumental sums of money politicians knowingly waste in pursuit of popularity. Labour's experience suggests it doesn't even work.
If you enjoyed those 'Peter Kay' one-liners in your inbox, they were probably written by Emo Philips
Helium-voiced survivor of 1980s alternative comedy boom on internet plagiarism, his 'subconcious' hairstyle, and being the original emo kid
Stop me if you think that you've heard these ones before. "My girlfriend always giggles during sex, no matter what she's reading." "I ran three miles today, and finally I said, 'Lady take your purse.'" "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike, then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me." "I'm a great lover … I'll bet."
We're all familiar with the work of Emo Philips without even realising it. His jokes are often so pithy and perfectly formed that they gain a life beyond the confines of his routines. They've been passed between workmates and friends via word of mouth; lifted wholesale by other acts (as Philips once said, "My jokes are in my head and I have a duplicate copy of my jokes in a lot of British comics' heads, where they are safe"); and circulated via chain emails. The latter is a more recent development: several times a year, some of Emo's jokes (muddled in with a few other classic one-liners) arrive in your correspondent's inbox, credited to Peter Kay, John Cleese or someone equally unlikely.
Such is the lot of the man seen as an inspiration by the likes of Jimmy Carr and Tim Vine, and regarded by the not-famously-generous figure of Jay Leno as the greatest gag writer in the world. However, UK audiences now have an opportunity to hear a fresh set of pristine jokes coming direct from the source, as Philips returns to this country for the first time in five years.
The Philips that appears in front of audiences is certainly a remarkable creation. On top of that shrill, wispy voice (which takes some getting used to, especially if you're accustomed to the rapid-fire stridency of most gag-based stand-ups), there's the haircut â€" an extraordinary bob that seems more likely to have been copied from a medieval artwork than designed by a contemporary stylist. "The reason for my hairstyle," he claims, "lies in my subconscious. I'm guessing, however, that it has something to do with the fact that, growing up, my mother, on the first day of summer vacation, would shave my head. I believe it is possible that I am now overcompensating."
'British audiences never laugh at my routine about mowing the lawn. I have no idea why. You can't all be using goats'
Although Philips is happy to play the outsider as a stand-up, British audiences have always given him a particularly warm reception. Maybe it's because his love not just of puns but all kinds of ludicrously contrived wordplay means that he fits neatly with a tradition of humour that's always been popular over here. Were it not for the lack of Home Counties vowels, you could almost imagine him among the cast of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
From the moment he arrived in the UK in the mid-1980s, Philips became a cult figure among the alternative comedy cognoscenti. He must have seemed novel, given the difference between his deliberately silly approach and the altogether more abrasive and politicised style practised by the likes of Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle. Since then, he's made numerous returns to this country (albeit punctuated by long absences) to play to an extremely loyal audience that includes a lot of big homegrown comedy names. Does he find there's a difference in response between British crowds and those back home? "The only difference I have found is that British audiences never laugh at my routine about mowing the lawn. I have no idea why. You can't all be using goats."
After playing a set at the Latitude festival this weekend, Philips will be preparing for a run at this year's Edinburgh festivalfringe. It was his performances there for over 20 years ago that paved the way for his success the UK, and it is still very fond of the city. He also claims the UK as a whole, although it is usually unlikely cause.
But here, he said, "TV funny '\\' ads are mirabile dictu, actually funny. My theory is that American copywriters see their competitors once a year at an awards ceremony, whereas their British counterparts bump into their rivals every night at the pub, and the peer pressure keeps them on their toes. They fear the mockery of their fellows far more than a follow-up from marketing." He is less convinced about the benefits of the new political regime, though. "It seems that if the United States elects a liberal, the rest of the world elects a conservative, and vice versa. Our species has an instinct for balance because we evolved from a tree-dwelling primate."
Philips's success on record and on TV in the 1980s may have been a high water mark, although he refutes the notion with characteristic high-pitched dryness: "It's a myth that the 80s were my best decade. In truth, it was from June 1984 through May 1994." In any case, he continues to find new and unexpected ways of making audiences laugh.
One new hazard he's had to deal with is the fact that his assumed name now has some unexpected connotations. However, rather than bemoan the torrid, angsty phenomenon of the emo kid, Emo Philips has decided to take personal credit for its genesis. "Few 'emo' kids are aware that I took the name from zero to 60," he says. "I'm not claiming that I influenced the 'emo' sound, but if you glance at the cover of my 1985 album, E=MO2, you'll see my 'emo' hair, clothing and physique." Philips is happy to take his potential association with the likes of My Chemical Romance on the chin. "At least I can take solace in the fact that my father, Bebop Philips, had to suffer the exact same indignity."
Compared with the euro, Fifa 's global cash cow keeps a large group from one another, and encourages negative football - it' time to his 16-team tournament again
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What it lacked was a truly great game, a match of ebbs and flows between giants that would burn itself into the pantheon. It wasn't just that here was nothing as good as Italy 3-2 Brazil from 1982There was nothing, even in the class of Brazil 1-1 Netherlands , Netherlands 2-1 Argentina or England 2-2 Argentina from 1998, which at the time I thought was a poor tournament. It's hard even to isolate one great game: Germany's victories over England and Argentina were impressive, but too comfortable to be thrilling; Spain's semi-final victory over Germany was engaging, but was never going to set pulses racing; and while there was excitement in Ghana's victory over USA and intrigue in their defeat to Uruguay, the quality wasn't high.
It is not just, though, about excitement and quality; there must also be consequence, which is why the third-and-fourth place game between Uruguay and Germany doesn't really count. A truly great game should be between two teams that stand a realistic chance of winning the tournament. There is interest in shocks, of course, and a World Cup would be incomplete without them, but they rely on a higher power playing some way below their best; the really epic contests lie in a meeting of two of the game's heavyweights playing somewhere near potential. I suspect we'll look back on this era and think what a shame it was that Brazil, Copa America champions, never met Spain, the European champions, at either the Confederations Cup or the World Cup.
Crunching the numbers
Quantifying such things is difficult, and the Fifa world rankings are far from perfect, but let's say the top 10 sides in those rankings â€" which are after all, the nearest we have to an objective measure - have a realistic chance of winning the World Cup. Heading into this World Cup, those 10 sides were Brazil, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England, France and Croatia. Of a total of 63 matches (I'm excluding the third-place play-off) seven featured a clash between two of those teams: 11%. In 2006, the figure was nine of 63 (and one of those was a dead-rubber group match between Argentina and the Netherlands after both had already qualified): 14%.
Compare that to the Euros. Going into Euro 2008, the top 10 in the world was: Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands. Even though the first two, for obvious reasons, weren't involved, eight of 31 games featured a meeting of two of the top 10 sides in the word: 26%. That's why the Euros, with 16 teams, usually feels like a higher quality tournament than the 32-team World Cup (and one of the many reasons expanding the Euros to 24 teams is such a bad idea).
Where there's a will there's a way
There is a way to go back to a more manageable 16-team tournament, and a way of doing it that would get 16 competitive teams that would be still fair to all regions and still stimulate growth in the less traditional football strongholds. I'm not naive enough to believe it could ever happen, but imagine this ...
Amalgamate the north and south American confederations to form one confederation of 50 teams. Amalgamate Asia and Oceania to create a confederation of 62 members. At present Uefa has 53 and the Confederation of African football 55, so you would have four confederations of roughly equal size (if you're wondering why that totals 220 when Fifa has only 208 members, it's because Reunion, Zanzibar (CAF), French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin, Sint-Maarten (Concacaf), Kiribati, Micronesia, Niue, Palau and Tuvalu (OFC) are not full Fifa members).
Select a host, who qualifies as of right. Then have regional pre-qualifying to get down to 60 teams for the final stage of qualifying. Based on a rough doubling of the allocation at the moment, that would be comprised of 26 from Europe, 14 from the Americas, 10 from Africa, 10 from Asia/Oceania. Draw them in 15 groups of four, who play each other home and away, with only the top side qualifying for the finals. Perhaps you'd end up with 15 European finalists, perhaps only a handful; but the beauty is it would be decided on the pitch rather than on merit. African and Asian teams wouldn't just get the chance to play the game's grandees, they get to host them.
Imagine a group featuring, for instance, England, Chile, Japan and Ghana. Imagine Spain going to Yaounde to play a qualifier. Imagine what it would mean for, say, New Zealand to play a qualifier in the Maracana. Qualifiers would in themselves become interesting, meaningful competition, rather than the familiar schlep around Tallinn, Andorra and Warsaw. And which develops the game more in, say, Togo - their team stuttering through three defeats in Germany or, say, Germany, Mexico and Australia coming to play in Lome?
Minnows would still have the chance to qualify, but they'd have really to earn the right. Similarly giants would miss out, as Argentina, say, missed out on 1970. The qualifiers would have real edge. And at the end of it, you'd have 15 teams battle-hardened by proper competition ready for a manageable three-week tournament in which the quality wouldn't be diluted. But then Fifa wouldn't make its billions, so instead we're condemned to an exhausting leviathan in which we have to hunt ever harder for football greatness. Bigger isn't better.
Voluntarism is laudable but Cameron's enthusiasm for National Citizen Service masks uncertainty as to its structure and purpose
The National Citizen Service (NCS) programme to be rolled out to 10,000 young people next year is, according to David Cameron, further evidence of the Conservatives' commitment to developing a "big society". Since becoming party leader, Cameron has maintained a belief in the ability of such a programme to instil "a sense of purpose, optimism and belonging" largely founded on his own experiences in the cadet force while at Eton. The Conservatives have supported pilot schemes including "The Challenge\\ ", Which is administered by Great Society Network Co-founder and newly appointed Conservative peer life, Nat Wei. These projects were found "success" in accordance with the latest Conservative policy paper, building confidence and cooperation, which sowed the seeds for a large company.
The idea of bringing together young people from diverse backgrounds to encourage social responsibility and cohesion through voluntarism and participation is laudable. But Cameron's enthusiasm masks uncertainty as to its structure and purpose. Initial Conservative proposals sought to develop a compulsory programme that involved the armed forces.
However cautionary responses from youth groups and the military mean the ambition of Cameron's programme has been scaled back and he now proposes a non-compulsory "kind of non-military national service". There is uncertainty as to the length of the programme, with suggestions ranging between three and eight weeks, whilst costs are estimated to be about £50m over two years. However if NCS is successful then some suggest it could cost up to £800m. Contrary to government suggestions, it is highly unlikely that private funding will limit the public liability if costs escalate.
The value of citizen service is also uncertain, with little hard evidence that it influences and changes the behaviour and attitudes of young people towards social responsibility or life-long activism. Research by the University of Strathclyde commissioned by the Conservatives into pilot NCS programmes raised doubts as to their effectiveness, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds where levels of social capital are often low. The extent to which a short programme can redress years of poverty, educational neglect and other forms of social dysfunction is unclear.
The Conservatives' belief in NCS is in part inspired by similar programmes in the United States. But Cameron fails to acknowledge that the drivers for youth citizenship initiatives differ considerably in the US, with young people often encouraged to volunteer to compensate for the partiality of government welfare provision in their communities. In light of extensive public sector cuts, if young people here feel that NCS is simply a means to provide public services on the cheap then its attraction could severely dented.
Like the big society, the aims of National Citizen Service are unclear and conflate volunteering and citizenship â€" the civil and the civic. Although Cameron appears to believe democratic participation will prove an organic by-product of community-based activities, volunteering does not necessarily engage with or promote democratic citizenship. Young people already volunteer in significant numbers but their interest in politics remains lower than other sections of society.
There is also a lack of clarity about how citizen service would mesh with established volunteering activities or groups or how it will link with citizenship education provision in schools. Many schools are already successfully engaged in developing youth citizenship but there is no consideration of potential for NCS to divert much needed resources. Focusing on young people could also have implications for long-term volunteering strategies, restricting funding and access for others in society.
Taking such concerns into account, NCS would appear to be a largely untested and potentially costly scheme with no certainty of regarding potential outcomes. Whether Cameron's coalition partners support its introduction is open to question: Danny Alexander has previously suggested the Conservatives are in "cloud cuckoo land" regarding potential costs. Although surveys suggest many adults support NCS, public resentment would grow quickly if costs were not matched by quantifiable evidence that it works.
Young people do not share this enthusiasm. Many are concerned about how a six- or seven-week programme could impinge on holiday or work plans, and it is doubtful that many would be willing or could afford to take up unpaid opportunities during the summer break. Addressing rising youth unemployment through the provision of structured training schemes would surely be a more appropriate use of public and private funds instead of an unproven vanity project by a PM still about its aims and motives.
The academies bill is casual law-making by arbitrary diktat that will fail the poorest and fuel the rise of faith schools
The academies bill
Everyone should be concerned at pressing questions left unanswered with no committee for detailed scrutiny. Michael Gove ducks and dives, blustering aggressively and attacking the BBC as a way to avoid answers. But alarming holes in the bill show this is an idea, an ideology, not a fully formed plan.
The 1,038 schools expressing an interest in becoming academies can only discover financial details by signing up and typing into the website details of their budget and pupils. Very small print says they will have to fund all local authority services for themselves, to include insurance, transport, food, legal and other services. So it is hard to tell if they would really gain. Tellingly, some local authorities inputting all their schools discovered the total amount to be paid out exceeded their total budget. The sums don't add up â€" which shows how badly the schools left behind will lose out.
Yet again there is a distinct sense of policy being made on the hoof. Gove told the Today programme that every new academy must take a struggling school under its wing. But it turns out that nothing in the bill says so. In the FAQ section of the Department for Education's website, The answer is no, it 's not necessary before the status of the Academy. Becoming the Academy is the expectation, but without a framework to make it happen: many rich areas, it never will.
Expect exclusions to increase, as schools will be able to keep their funding for the year for pupils they exclude, instead of handing it over to whoever takes in that child. Ministers say this will "remove the disincentive to exclude" â€" but how perverse to add a very strong financial incentive to throw out those who risk lowering an academy's standards. Gone will be Ed Balls's present behaviour partnerships, where academies agree with local schools to take in each others' excluded children. Nor does the bill mention appeals panels for the excluded. These were brought in by the previous Conservative government to prevent mushrooming court cases: are the courts to fill up again with judicial reviews of headteachers' decisions?
Faith schools are likely to boom, in this most secular of nations. An ICM poll for The British Humanist Association â€" of which I am president â€" finds 72% of people concerned at academies being set up by religious organisations. So far 273 faith schools are bidding to become academies, free to teach creationism or any nonsense they like. In the Lords, Baroness Murphydescribed one example: "Take, for example Ebrahim Academy in Whitechapel , an academy school for boys … The school day begins with tahfeez, which is reciting the Qur'an and getting the pronunciation right, which takes up half the day. Then the national curriculum takes up the second half of the day. It is a state-funded, tax-funded madrasa for the Islamic faith."
So what did the education minister reply? "One of the core aims of the policy is precisely that the secretary of state should not dictate to academies what they should teach … I fully accept that if you trust people things do go wrong, but that is the direction that we want to try to go in." Remember, there will be no Ofsted inspections of academies, unless their exam results plummet. We will never know what goes on.
One clause prevents a new faith academy ever turning secular. Naomi Phillips, head of public affairs at the BHA, warns some community schools may turn religious as they become academies, in the grip of local religious leaders among their governors. All this is at the whim of the secretary of state, who has encouraged private religious schools to apply, even if they are not "outstanding". CofE, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddist and Sathya Sai Baba schools have all applied. See how many of the new free schools will be set up by religious groups who have more money and professional organisation than parents.
And other studies confirm - they are socially isolated children with higher academic performance and less on free school meals.
Yesterday Ed Balls led the attack in the Commons, amid a protest outside by some of the 700 schools with rebuilding funds confiscated to pay for the new free schools. This bill will accelerate the social segregation of children â€" a well-documented phenomenon that worsened under Labour. Under the coalition, money may flow increasingly towards better schools as deprived children congregate in deprived schools. The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows how plans for a pupil premium for poorer children perversely risk redistributing to better off areasfrom places such as Tower Hamlets, which now receives nearly twice as much per capita as leafy districts. Labour has made to improve schools, and GCSE results was slightly less class related. Everything in this bill proposes a course in another direction.
The unscrutinised passage of this bill, with so many questions unanswered and such absolute power given to Gove, is an alarming augury of this government's style of policymaking. Contrary to everything Cameron said about giving power back to parliament and decentralising decision-making to local people, this is casual law-making by arbitrary diktat.
That WikiLeaks went to the press with the Afghanistan war logs shows old-fashioned news organisations still have a role to play
Of all the questions raised by the Afghanistan war logs, perhaps the most intriguing is this: why would an organisation as independent-minded and disdainful of the traditional media as WikiLeakslook for these same media as partners, rather than alone?
My necessarily speculative answer is that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who's made a speciality of revealing embarrassing governmental secrets, learned something important earlier this year. That's when he briefly caused a sensation by releasing video of a US Apache helicopter firing on Iraqi civilians, killing (among others) a Reuters photographer and his driver.
Lesson: shocking material and flair for public relations might be enough to get you noticed. But if trust "You want something old-fashioned news organizations still have much to offer.
Wikileaks has made some 92,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan at the disposal of Guardian , the New York Timesand Der Spiegel a month ago, giving professional journalists time to sort, vet and craft narratives from jargon-laden field reports compiled by US officials.
The documents add sickening details to the broad outlines of what we already knew: that major elements of Pakistan's intelligence forces are in bed with the Taliban; that chaos and confusion in Afghanistan has led to civilian casualties; and that among the burdens the Afghan people must bear is a corrupt and ineffective government.
The Obama administration has lambasted WikiLeaks for releasing the documents, arguing that the situation has improved since 2009, when the most recent of the official reports were compiled. But no one has questioned the authenticity of the documents themselves, even if the reliability of the information contained therein appears to be of variable quality.
In effect, Assange chose to act as Daniel Ellsberg, the insider who leaked the Pentagon Papers â€" the US government's own secret history of the Vietnam war â€" to the Washington Post and the New York Times. But it was just a few months ago that Assange tried out the role of Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post executive editor who published those papers.
In April, you may recall, WikiLeaks uploaded two versions of the Apache helicopter video. One was an edited, 18-minute version that it titled Collateral Murder, which begins with a quote from George Orwell: "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." The other, 39 minutes long, was raw footage with no commentary.
The American secretary of defence, Robert Gates, denounced the video as having been taken out of context. No surprise there. But as Raffi Khatchadourian notesprofile Assange published in the New Yorker, the media turned from the road Gates 'in a few days of release. And really, if watching videos and listening to the Americans, on board the helicopter, you can see that the crew believed, rightly or wrongly, that they were beaten by legitimate objectives.
Even the comedian Stephen Colbert, in an interview with Assange, dropped his rightwing-blowhard persona momentarily to make a serious point, calling the edited version "emotional manipulation" and telling his guest: "There are armed men in the group. They did find a rocket-propelled grenade among the group. The Reuters photographers who were regrettably killed were not identified as photographers. And you have edited this tape, and you have given it a title called Collateral Murder. That's not leaking. That's a pure editorial."
(Designed for British readers who are not familiar with Colbert, and thus a surprise to me, referring to the comic: it's sad but undeniable fact that two of the most acute critics of U.S. media today can be Colbert and his colleagues forged a leading John Stewart .)
Around the time that the video was released, hubris among the WikiLeakers was thick. In the New Yorker piece, we hear from a friend and supporter of Assange's, a Dutch hacker named Rop Gonggrijp, who smugly says that "we are not the press" and "the source is no longer dependent on finding a journalist who may or may not do something good with his document".
Yet here we are, several months later, and Assange is acting very much like an old-fashioned source, seeking out journalists even as he uploads the raw source documents to the web.
In the good words of New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, Wikileaks is "stateless organization news ". But as the New Yorker piece makes clear, Assange and his fellow activists are less interested in news than in making a political impact. And it is an organisation only in the loosest sense of the term. Given those realities, it makes sense for them to work with journalists rather than to posit themselves in opposition to the media.
"WikiLeaks was soaking, drowning in data," Rosen's NYU colleague Clay Shirky tells David Carr of the New York Times. "What they needed was someone who could tell a story. They needed someone who could bring accuracy and political context to what was being revealed."
I suggest that old media has won over new. Rather, I 'm just pointing out that each has its place in the ecosystem, the media.
Wikileaks, with its focus on singleminded pursuit of informants and protect their identity by using encryption and the secret, you can get the material that escapes established news organizations. A professional journalists may veterinarian interpret and disseminate the authority on this material in such a way that not all new media company (at least Wikileaks) can.
The result is a powerful indictment of the war in Afghanistan â€" and a major challenge to Barack Obama.
Back in character, Colbert asked Assange: "What is the purpose of letting the public know? It's like you're saying it's better to know than not to know. Have you not heard ignorance is bliss?"
It's way too late for that now.
• Dannatt: UK army caught in 'perfect storm in 2006'
• Resources stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan
•'Snatch' Land Rover 'significantly exposed' in Iraq
• Read the afternoon summary
4.46pm: Prashar presses Jackson on the planned tour length for soldiers. (It used to be four months but a long time ago moved up to six months.) But in the context of Iraq, rather than say Northern Ireland, this was reviewed. But the outcome was not revolutionary. They decided not to go back to four months, even though the six months required a short leave break in the middle. It was different for senior officers. For a number of reasons, including what their American counterparts were doing, the tendency was to have longer period in the field: one year, sometime two years.
4.42pm: Jackson moved on under questioning about helicopters. We referred earlier to further documents, released today, which show General Sir Mike Jackson had serious concerns about the helicopter fleet. "The overall picture is one of a [helicopter] force ill-matched to support our current operations," he wrote after a visit to Iraq in 2005 Jackson says trying to enlarge capabilities quickly is never easy, particularly when you need technical capacities. "You have what you have at the time. Perfection ain't going to be there."
4.41pm: Freedman tries to probe further as to how decisions about new vehicles are made and the role of the military. Jackson says he doesn't recall the defence management board around during his time, requesting "x or y". Freedman says is it the case of the more high profile areas, for example, determining priorities. Jackson agrees to a point. He says the difference between the army and the other two services is that they equip the man, whereas in the others staff man the equipment. "There is a sense I think in the army that if times are tight you take a bit off the army without it being too dramatic."
Friedman says "Snatch" Car Land Rover, he was trying to push this process? Yes, says Jackson, referring to an important meeting with the then Minister for Procurement, Lord Drayson. He stressed the moral duty. He said Drayson could use its powers to cut through some of the sites. Jackson Drayson make a real contribution.
?€? footnote to this: the declassified memorandum of Ministers, Lieutenant-General Sir Nicholas Houghton released yesterday shows on demand, ministers have been officially warned that the military should be an alternative to "Snatch" Land Rover partway through Iraq and Afghanistan.
• But British troops continued to be killed and injured in the lightly armored "Snatch", which is vulnerable to roadside bombs, during several more years.
• The senior officer confirmed that commanders required an alternative to the use of the "Snatch" or tracked armoured vehicles on current operations.
• The letter was sent to defence procurement minister Lord Drayson and copied to defence secretary Des Browne and armed forces minister Adam Ingram as well as the defence chiefs of staff.
• The government was conscious of criticism of the use of the "Snatc"h Land Rover, which critics have blamed for the deaths of dozens of UK servicemen and women in roadside bomb attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• A hand-written annotation to the memo reads: "NB note. Ministers can no longer say in the House that they have had no request from commanders for an alternative to the Snatch."
• Drayson's assistant private secretary wrote back requesting advice on how to get the required number of new more heavily armoured vehicles ready to send to Iraq in November 2006.
• This confirms the fact that Jackson spoke about Drayson put their powers to good use.
4.30pm: Jackson says he was asking for something on new vehicles that was not "gold-plated" but quick to turn around, even if it wasn't 100%. It was to avoid excess time and cost. But it was a "cry in the wilderness". Freedman asks where this idea of gold-plating comes from. Doesn't he have influence? Jackson says it was the defence procurement agency that decided the specification for new vehicles. Jackson raises the issue of who is setting the specifications. "All the army does is state what capabilities they need in the new vehicles." Jackson says he doesn't want to be critical, because he understands why people strive for the best, but it leads to delay and cost.
4.25pm: Freedman presses him on moves to improve the "Snatch" Land Rovers or find alternatives. How involved was he? Jackson says this is one area that is frustrating for a single service chief, because you don't have the cheque book and you're not the lead for procurement. He cites a reorganisation that took place following a review by consultants. The conclusion was that the armed services were the customer No 2, and responsibility for ordering equipment would be with another department ... It gets a bit detailed but the upshot is that Jackson was left at "arms length" of the process of buying equipment. It's very frustrating, he says. Though he repeats that "Snatch" Land Rovers do have a place. Freedman claims the head of the army has a lack of influence/direct control over core equipment. Jackson agrees.
4.23pm:
4:16 pm: Jackson is being drawn on reinforcement capabilities. He says part of the judgement the army has to make is the pressure its troops can withstand. "Of course it depends what they're being asked to do." Jackson says the deployable army is about 75-80,000, though not all of them are fully trained. Lyne says all these considerations are technical, but did he relay to Blair at the time his concerns about stretching the army. Jackson says single service chiefs have a right to ask for an audience with the PM, but the defence of chief has a regular slot with the premier. Lyne says but surely as head of the service carrying the biggest burden, did he not raise this with Blair when he inquired. Not that way around, as I recall, he says, which suggests Blair didn't check with him directly. Jackson says he had confidence that the defence chief was reflecting the concerns he has been highlighting about stretch strain and reinforcement.
4.08pm: Lyne is still playing with the concept of an overheated machine â€" he actually said overstretched machine. Jackson says the arithmetic worked, but the commitment/morale factor was something else. it was a judgement. Jackson says he had signalled that the timetable would not be achieved in Iraq. But by that time the British were a key part of the Nato plan in Afghanistan and it wouldn't have been, in his view, possible to withdraw, because it would have had serious implications for Afghanistan.
4.06pm:
4.05pm: Lyne cites Dannatt's comments this morning of conditions being created for a "perfect storm" in 2006, due to the twin demands of Iraq and Afghanistan. Were ministers aware of the pressures that were being placed by the planned deployment in Afghanistan? Jackson says it was unreasonable at the time to have forecast Iraq to a few hundred. By the time they had signed up to the Nato Afghanistan plan, the quandary of being squeezed on two sides was because of the reality of the Iraqi forecast was not going as planned. But on Afghanistan, the decision was not just down to the British since Nato forces were involved. Such a decision would have disrupted the plan. Lyne presses him about whether ministers appreciated all this. Jackson tries to recall. Sketchily, he recalls it was "yes we can do our part in Afghanistan, if we achieve a draw down in Iraq".
4.02pm:
3.57pm: Jackson says his visits to Iraq were not confined to the south. In late autumn 2005, things in the Sunni triangle were not looking good â€" he says that wasn't the sense he had in the south. He says he got to a place that the military had to see things through. By the time he left office in the summer of 2006 he says: "We were staring failure in the face. We weren't there. Nor had been."
3.54pm: Jackson said it wasn't ideal that the military ended up training the new police force, but it was better than nothing.
3.51pm: Freedman asks Jackson about a letter he wrote the chief of the defence of staff in April 2005, in which he highlighted the lack of discernible progress over the establishment of a Iraqi police service, "not to mention a criminal justice system". These two structures were a prerequisite to eventual military disengagement, so the lack of progress was "alarming". Jackson's note was more sanguine about the progress of the Iraqi army.
Jackson tells the panel the police under Saddam's reign had been used in a lawless and corrupt way, so it was important to instil confidence in the populace with a new police regime.
3.46pm: Jackson says the referendum and initial elections in Iraq to achieve a new Iraqi government was a huge step towards achieving the strategic objective. The replacement of the coalition provisional authority (CPA) with the first elected government was a "huge stride in the right direction", since the CPA symbolised the invasion.
3.44pm: January 2004 â€" Jackson wrote that the Iraqi army was "embryonic". He added: "I fear it will be a long way from functioning at anything above company level by the end of the year."
Pressed today, Jackson said he was trying to point out it was important not to overestimate the speed with which they could build up the new forces. It was an attempt to remove rose-tinted spectacles. Freedman asks whether he was trying to highlight flawed policy, or a flawed timetable. Jackson says it was a timetable issue.
3.42pm: Lyne cites a previous witness, Sir Kevin Tebbit, who said he was concerned the military would be stretching itself by going into Afghanistan while still in Iraq. Jackson says Nato involvement in Iraq started around 2005, and there was an intricate plan by which they would takeover on a province-by-province basis anti-clockwise from the north. Helmand was in the plan for the summer of 2006. But in 2004 the British planning assumption was that we would be out of Iraq or still on a training basis. Those conditions had not been met, but that was the assumption at the time. Jackson adds that it might occur when it became clear the Iraq timetable had slipped, "one should delay Afghanistan, but we were part of this great Nato plan, with the great impetus behind it. So we did find ourselves for the next 18 months, having to balance off these two theatres".
3.40pm: The boundary between southern Iraq - the area of British responsibility - and the rest, wasn't a formal one "but it began to feel like one". We're now looking at 2004 - about a year after the invasion. Roderic Lyne recalls the time of the G8 summit, and the following Nato summit, where it was decided that the arc would encompass Afghanistan, as if the latter had become a more popular stage. Jackson says he wouldn't put it quite like that. But he can agree that as Iraq went on without visible, real - in the sense of public improvement â€" its approval rating was going down. Also there was a sense, certainly then, that Iraq, after the fall of the Taliban, was somewhat put on the backburner. The sense was that they had been defeated, but not destroyed, and more was going to have to be done.
3.32pm: Jackson says it was "myopic" not to look at the insurgency campaign as a whole, rather than just the south, but he was out-voted.
• General Sir Mike Jackson told the inquiry he was "surprised" about why the initial planning of the invasion of Iraq, there was little or no commitment to the British Army . "I was mystified by the original thinking and I didn't understand it," he said. It appears Jackson was less concerned than his predecessor Sir Richard Dannatt about overstretch.
• Dannatt said the competing priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan meant the British army was in "perfect" The Tempest "in 2006 and was close to the" taking up " . In his evidence during the morning session. Dannatt likened the army in 2006 to a car "running hot". [10.29am,10.34am ]
• Both Jackson and Dannat expressed concern about the lack of post-conflict planning in Iraq. The situation deteriorated when defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld mounted a "hostile takeover" of the Pentagon under Colin Powell, Dannatt said.
• Dannatt expressed significant concerns about equipment, saying the controversial "Snatch" Land Rover was "significantly exposed" in Iraq and that there was a "significant" problem with helicopters. Dannatt expressed his frustration that a replacement light armoured patrol vehicle has not been found, putting this down to a "deficiency in leadership and energy". [11.22am]
• Declassified documents show Jackson had serious concerns about the helicopter fleet. "The overall picture is one of the [] force helicopter medley in support of our ongoing operations" he wrote after his visit to Iraq in 2005.
3.23pm: The assumption usually is that you have a large land force as a "one off", and then you "downsize".
Gilbert asks about the declassified reports, which include a letter highlighting Jackson's concerns about resources in light of the growing violence two months after the invasion.
Although it is only about 30+days since combat operations ceased, public percetion and expectation is critical in maintaing security. 1 (UK) armed div have formulated a sound plan involving all the lines of operation, and effect that are required to create a viable state. However, they have reached the limit of their technical capabilities and desperately need subject matter experts...
You can read all this, on May 13, here (PDF) . It also cites a "complete lack of direction" and lack of support, such as NGOs.
Gilbert asked Jackson whether these needs have been anticipated. "Not to the extent that the events actually happened", he said, stressing the seriousness of the situation that arose.
"It was a honeymoon period in the south. I can remember walking without body armour or steel helment - indeed buying a carpet, I think. But that did not last very long."
He describes the serious deterioration that had occurred three months. The question that the deterioration will affect the British situation, Jackson said that they were out of the original soft profile, which holds, in his view, used by military personnel on the ground, as the situation worsens.
"A harder profile had to be balanced by the battle to win hearts and minds," he says.
3.10pm: He said he had sought similar advice before the invasion of Kosovo. Back on phase four, and postwar planning, Prashar asks about the defence spending assumptions at that time, and whether they had raised them. He says the defence spending assumptions had been set in 1998 and "we have been working outside of them ever since". He said the matter was discussed among the chiefs but it was ultimately up to the defence chief to lead on that.
3.05pm: Prashar cites Jackson's book, Soldier, published in 2007, in which he discusses the legality issue. He points out that Saddam had been in defiance of the requirements enshrined in all of them. Every extra resolution somewhat eroded the authority of the UN. But he was well aware that Britain was a signatory of the International Criminal Court and he didn't want to end up in prison as the neighbour of a man he had helped to put away, Slobodan Milosevic.
3.03pm: Prashar asks Jackson about the legality of the war. Jackson said the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, issued a discursive opinion in February in which he laid the arguments for or against invasion of iraq without coming to a conclusion. The military then requested a definitive statement of legallity. That led to the much shorter document where the attorney general concluded that the so called resolution was not strictly necessary. "I say 'so called' because there had been 17 resolutions by this time," he adds.
2.51pm: Freedman is probing where the channels lie for conveying senior military concerns about levels of preparations. There seemed to be widespread concern at senior levels about the adequacy of preparations for the task ahead - does that get conveyed to ministers? Oh yes, Jackson says. But we couldn't get our hands on the levers that were going to set the atmosphere for phase four, not helped by measures taken on the ground, such as disbanding Iraqi security forces, he says.
2:45 pm: Jackson says phase four planning throughout 2002 rested with the State Department in Washington. The Foreign Office was the lead department in Britain. But in January 2003, responsibility shifted to the Pentagon. He says his understanding was that the Pentagon was "unimpressed" with that work. This created concern.
There was a concern, yes, about what phase four would look like and how it was going to be.
Dominant sense in Whitehall would not be potential humanitarian problems. But it was wrong because the issue was security: 1.
2.44pm:
2:43 pm: Freedman turns to aftermath planning. Jackson was suggesting he wasn't sure that Washington had thought that phase through. Jackson said the length and scale of the duration of postwar planning had not been pinned down.
It may be one thing to defeat by maneouvre, but it's quite another thing to re-establish the country concerned into a stable country ... these are very big tasks indeed.
He says he has no memory of a finite time being given about phase four, though he says there was a plan to bring force levels down "as quickly as possible".
2.41pm: Chilcot presses on planning deadlines and whether this impacted on military readiness in March 2003. Jackson says that the logisticians "pulled their rabbits out of the hat", despite the short period they had to work with.
Jackson says military readiness is seen in terms of training. It's how well trained are you, do you have the people, do you have the equipment? And then you work with that, he says.
Chilcote says that Jackson reservists said that they were not prepared or used in such a way that make them feel competent. In fact, what to do with the speed of getting things ready? Yes, it 's fair, says Jackson. But he adds that the army is better to train reservists now.
There's a place they are sent to where they receive refresher courses, training and so on. He adds that it's striking that when you go out and visit (I assume he means the field), you can't tell the difference between a reservist and a regular soldier.
2.29pm: Jackson agrees that logistical planning for the invasion was "late in the day" - a point picked up by several senior military figures who have given evidence to the inquiry.
He agrees that the usual planning period is six months. Yet preparations did not begin until December 2002. Jackson said he understood that political considerations in the autum meant that there was a sensitivity about signalling that was inevitable. He cites desert combat clothing provision as an example.
2:23 pm: On resources, Jackson says that in 2002, the probability that large-scale military efforts would be needed was clear - though he suggests he was surprised that a large land force component wasn't being considered. Jackson says he never understood why land forces weren't put in as part of the offer in the first place.
I was mystified by the original thinking and I didn't understand it.
Asked if it might have been to do with cost or stretch, Jackson, says of course it's more expensive if you add a large land component, as well as increasing risk of casualties. He doesn't seem to think the stretch was the issue.
2.15pm: Jackson says that he had no doubts about the defeat of Saddam, but says he has doubts about the postwar aftermath, which he describes as "phase four".
There was the sense that while maneouvre war will be completed quickly and decisively, Phase 4 will not.
Asked if he felt there was a consensus in Whitehall across departments, Jackson says: "I'm afraid I didn't."
He says the job of nation-building required more than the military, so required interdepartmental consensus. By the late summer of 2003, when it was becoming clear that phase four would be "messy", he made the suggestion that it would be good to appoint a minister for Iraq. But this was not taken up, he says.
2.11pm: The session begins. Sir Roderick Lyne asks Jackson how much time he spent in Iraq as CGS (chief of the general staff). Jackson said he started in the role just a few weeks before the invasion.
At the start, Iraq consumed a lot of his time, but the intense degree of involvement diminished as time went on. Lyne asks him how he kept in touch with events out there.
Jackson said there were a number of channels used. He went out about eight or nine times during his tenure.
"You have to go out there because you can't get a sense of things sitting in Whitehall."
There were also reporting systems into the MoD and chief of staff meetings. In sum, he did not sense a "dearth of information".
Lyne asks him whether he felt Britain had a clear strategy about what they wanted to do? For the first part, yes, for the second part, "I'm less certain", he says.
1.41pm: The Chilcot inquiry grilling of Sir Mike Jackson starts at 2pm. Jackson was the predecessor of General Dannatt, who gave evidence this morning. He served as commander in chief of land command (2000 to 2003) and then as chief of the general staff (2003 to 2006).
Jackson will give evidence as documents published today by the inquiry reveal how he warned that the UK's helicopter fleet in Iraq was "creaking badly" and "inadequate".
Jackson also told the head of the armed forces, that air transport provision for troops and equipment and the Middle East even worse.
He raised the concerns after visiting British forces in Iraq in late 2005.
In a report to General Sir Michael Walker, then-chief of the defence staff, he repeated concerns expressed by commanders on the ground about problems with helicopters and transport aircraft.
He said it was proving almost impossible to meet requirements for troops to return home part way through their tours on "R&R" breaks, which had an effect on the effectiveness of the army division serving in Iraq.
In the declassified excerpt from his report, released today, dated October 2005, Jackson wrote:
Our support helicopter fleet is creaking badly. JHF-I (Joint Helicopter Force Iraq) is struggling to meet its tasks even with rigorous prioritisation ... The overall picture is one of an SH (support helicopter) force ill-matched to support current operations. If our SH capability is inadequate, our AT (air transport) fleet is worse. The air bridge to theatre is now so fragile that sustaining an efficient R&R schedule is nigh impossible. Quite apart from the morale effect of inordinate delays, the difficulties with R&R are now beginning to impact significantly on the operational effectiveness of the division.
1.14pm:It 's at the end of the testimony Dannatt'. The overarching theme was his basic view that Iraq was a conflict in which Britain should not be involved. "We can say that Iraq is discretionary, I would say that Afghanistan was not at its sole discretion," he said in a statement revealing.
• Dannatt said competing priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan meant the British army was caught in a "perfect storm" in 2006 and was close to "seizing up". The security situation in Iraq was deteriorating, but it was also important to commit more troops to Afghanistan. Dannatt likened the army in 2006 to a car "running hot". [10.29am,10.34am ]
• The lack of post-conflict planning in Iraq "made a difficult situation worse".The situation worsened when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set 'hostile capture "Pentagon in the United States Colin Powell.
• He expressed grave concern over equipment, claiming that the disputed "Snatch" Land Rover was "heavily exposed to" in Iraq, and that there "great" The problem with helicopters. Dannatt expressed his frustration that a replacement light armoured patrol vehicle has not been found, putting this down to a "deficiency in leadership and energy". [11.22am]
• Declassified documents show General Sir Mike Jackson had serious concerns about the helicopter fleet.\\ "The overall picture is one of the [] force helicopter medley in support of our ongoing operations" he wrote after his visit to Iraq in 2005.
That's it from me. Thanks for all your comments. My colleague Hélène Mulholland will be following General Sir Mike Jackson's evidence this afternoon.
1.11pm: Chilcot asks Dannatt whether there is anything else he would like to add.
"We have talked about the lack of proper campaign planning and the vacuum that was created in Iraq which made a difficult situation worse," Dannatt says. "We have talked about the slow way priorities have been applied to the expenditure of resources in both Iraq and Afghanistan and the need to prioritise rigorously between problems that are staring you in the face and problems that you might or might not face in the future. That balance still has to be addressed and that is a major challenge for the defence review that is ongoing," he says.
Dannatt also mentioned that the session has not discussed helicopters. The decision not to fund helicopter programmes has been a significant shortfall, he says. "We are paying the price for that in Afghanistan," he says.
12:59 pm: The problem from the middle of 2007 was that Iraq was an unpopular war, and Afghanistan got tainted by the same brush, says Dannatt.
Poor understanding of the Army changed the return parade. People got over the armed forces, t realize the last And no government "that. Now we must get the support of the mission in Afghanistan and not only the armed forces, said Dannatt.
12.56pm: Chilcot asks how the UK's role in Iraq should be viewed. At the middle level in the US military they couldn't understand why the British were not doing more in Iraq, Dannatt says. He says relations are good with the US despite some "lumpy moments" (that phrase again).
Some of our European allies were good, some other partners haven 'T. "The deal with the speck in your own eye mate, before considering this," Dannatt said about some of the UK 's European allies currently fall into a rather colorful phrases.
Basra has a chance of better future than it had under Saddam Hussein, Dannatt says of the legacy of the British involvement in Iraq.
The job the British were asked to do in southern Iraq was substantially done by the time we left in 2009. Our task was to guard the southern flank of the coalition â€" I think we did that ... Basra has the prospect of hope and development in the future.
12:51 pm: Gilbert asks about casualties and the notification of bereaved families. Families have complained of a dismissive attitude from the army. "If that is how some families felt that's a disaster and a tragedy." Dannatt replies. The visiting officer formula has been extremely helpful, with one or two exceptions, he says. Where there has been greater contention is the lack of legal representation of families at inquests.
If families felt they wanted representation, it should have been provided, Dannatt says. There have been moves towards a better process now, but it was deficient in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Dannatt says.
12.43pm: Asked to outline the deficiencies Dannatt lists pay, accommodation and the medical response to casualties. Referring again to the Daily Mail article Dannatt says it was important that he was fighting the corner of frontline troops. We had to do something to quickly to try to boost morale, Dannatt says.
Dannatt agrees to hand over his coffee-stained letter to Des Browne outlining his concerns.
12.38pm: Freedman puts forward the proposition that the army was frustrated with Iraq, and Afghanistan provided an opportunity to revive its reputation. "We were locked into a lumpy set of circumstances in southern Iraq. There was an opportunity to get it right," Dannatt says. But he insists the shift to Afghanistan was not done for the army's convenience.
You could say Iraq was discretionary, I would say Afghanistan was non-discretionary.
12.35pm: Referring to his Daily Mail article (9.37am) when he called for troops to be withdrawn soon from Iraq. The situation had changed between 2004 and 2006 and that had not been taken into account, Dannatt says. In 2006 in his first week as head of the general staff Dannatt wrote a "lengthy letter" to the defence secretary Des Browne raising issues about the army being stretched on two fronts.
12.26pm: In 2004 things were going relatively well in southern Iraq, so the decision to do more in Afghanistan was reasonable, Dannatt insists. By the summer of 2005 the situation had worsened in southern Iraq partly because of the use of EFPs (explosively formed projectiles).
12.20pm:If Iraq was the only show in town, we could increase the troops, too, but we certainly could not 't because of commitments in Afghanistan, Dannatt said.
Iraq and Afghanistan were two fronts of the same campaign, Dannatt says.
12.14pm: What was the strategic objective of the UK in 2006, Lyne asks. "That's a very good question," Dannatt says. We were the junior partner in both Afghanistan and Iraq, so the UK's national objective was not that relevant, he says.
Is there a risk of strategic failure, Lin asked. As a junior partner, we did not own a coalition strategy. In 2006-2007, they were at the peak of the change in strategy for the transfer to the Iraqis to a military escalation.
We were on the coat-tails going in other direction of handing over to the Iraqis province by province.
12.09pm: Sir Roderic Lyne asks about post-conflict planning. It looked as if the coalition was making it up as it went along, Lyne says. History shows that these things do take longer than you expect, Dannatt says, citing the examples of Northern Ireland and Bosnia.
Some planning was conducted for the aftermath (phase four in the lingo), Dannatt insists. But the problems arose when the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, mounted a "hostitle takeover" bid on the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, installing Paul Bremner as governor of Iraq.
There was a change of tactics, but no "plan B", Dannatt admits. The "de-ba'athfication process" - cleansing the Iraqi government and civil servants of members of Saddam's Ba'ath party - made matters worse, he adds.
If there is no plan, there is a vacuum, and into a vacuum malign forces will come, and that is exactly what happened.
12:05 pm: Glen Oglaza, political correspondent for Sky News, is also following the Chilcot inquiry today. He makes this pithy analysis of Dannatt's evidence so far on Twitter:
12:03 pm: Why did take until October 2006 for the MoD to come up with a statement about the priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dannatt asks in exasperation.
11:56 am: Why does it take a minister to intervene to tackle an equipment problem? Dannatt is asked by Freedman. "One had to accept the decisions that were taken with a degree of frustration," Dannatt replies.
11:53 am: Dannatt reveals that an equipment demonstration was organised on Salisbury Plain to show the problems with vehicles to the then defence procurement minister Lord Drayson.
In the car returing from Salisbury, Drayson confessed that he had "no idea" the army had a problem. Dannatt says Drayson accepted the notion that the army needed new vehicles as quickly as possible.
There was a plan to start production in 2007. The new vehicles would been used in 2010, Dannatt says. But that programme was halted when Lord Drayson left the government for "personal reasons". The programme "stopped absolutely dead", Dannatt says.
Dannatt glossed over the reasons for Drayson's reason for leaving the government: in fact, it was to pursue his motor-racing ambitions.
11.48am: Dannatt says there were internal Whitehall machinations over the implementation of Fres. "I was horrified to find that the in-service date for Fres would be 2012," he says. Some felt it might not be ready until 2015 or 2018. "Where is the analysis about what our defence really needs?" Dannatt asked.
He adds that the Mastiff vehicles were no substitute for Fres utility vehicles.
11:43 am: The hearing continues where it left off with Dannatt discussing the Future Rapid Effect System or Fres, the MoD programme to deliver a fleet of armoured vehicles.
Had the programme gone ahead as envisaged we would have had capable vehicles, Dannatt says. The UK didn't go down that track, he adds, partly for reasons of affordability. It became more sophisticated and expensive than needed, he says. Asked who made that decision he says: "I don't know."
11:33 am: Here Sat summary 'evidence so far this morning.
• Sir Richard Dannatt said the competing priorities in Iraq and Afghanistan meant the British army was in "perfect" The Tempest "in 2006 and was close to the" taking up " . The security situation in Iraq was deteriorating, but it was also important to commit more troops to Afghanistan. Dannatt likens the army in 2006 to a car "running hot". [10.29am,,10.34am ]
• The controversial "Snatch" Land Rover was "significantly exposed" in Iraq. Dannatt repeatedly expresses his frustration that a replacement light armoured patrol vehicle has not been found, putting this down to a "deficiency in leadership and energy". [11.22am]
• Declassified documents show General Sir Mike Jackson had serious concerns about the helicopter fleet. "The overall picture is one of a [helicopter] force ill-matched to support our current operations," he wrote after a visit to Iraq in 2005.
11.31am:Here 's that to capture the lines in full, thanks to the Press Association. Dannatt it comes to disparities in pay, accommodation and equipment.
You can run hot when you are in balance and there is enough oil sloshing around the engine to keep it going. When the oil is thin, or not in sufficient quantity, the engine runs the risk of seizing up. I think we were getting quite close to a seizing up moment in 2006 ... We could see that perfect storm coming to fruition in about the middle of 2006 and I would contend that it did.
11:22 am: Dannatt is asked further about the problems relating to the Snatch Land Rover. He says:
We worked around the problem, we didn't actually confront the problem ... [this was] a deficiency in leadership and energy. It was really frustrating not to be able to get on with this. It would be wrong to say this was kicked into the long grass, but other solutions, workarounds, were preferred ... It seems incredible that we couldn't poroduce a three or four tonne light armoured vehicle before now.
Dannatt is asked where the lack of leadership lay: he partially dodges the question by saying it was down to competing resources. Other people didn't want to sacrifice other pieces of equipment, he says.
Chilcot calls a quick break before Dannatt goes into more technical detail.
11.17am: On Snatch Land Rovers, Dannatt is asked about whether there should have been improvements or a replacement. All commanders accept the need for a light patrol vehicle, Dannatt says. That was the justification for keeping it. There was nothing on the market to replace it quickly in 2003-2004 and the MoD is still deciding on its replacement. We had to accept that and develop "workarounds", Dannatt says.
When I said we should have the best car - they offered to put more armor on vehicles thought Dannatt obsolete in 1970. I took a deep breath, Dannatt said.
Why not use the "Hummers", as Amercians, Chilcote asked.
Humvees were just as bad as Snatch Land Rovers, Dannatt says, citing US problems.
11.11am: Dannatt says that equipment had been requested as "urgent operational requirements" for Iraq that had previously been struck out as cost savings.
We were putting things back in that were taken out.
Asked for specific examples Dannatt says the the Apache helicopter had a radio for supporting troops. This was then taken out as a cost-saving measure, and then put back in.
11.08am: Dannatt says that some of the discussion about terms of service were "tortuous".
Sir Lawrence Freedman is now asking about equipment. In general terms Dannatt says he was satisfied with equipment, but there was a problem reporting requirements from the ground to the Defence Procurement Agency. Land command could have helped more to understand troop requirements.
Once there was properly argued case, that was never turned down by the Treasury, Dannatt says. But he says not enough was done to ensure troops had the right equipment. "There was a defficiency in leadership and energy at times," he says.
11.01am: Prashar asks about continuity and six-month tour rotations.
I am implacable in my view ... that six months in the front line is as much as you can ask a soldier to do.
Dannatt tells the inquiry that he disagrees with US tours of 12 or even 15 months. "I have seen some very tired American soldiers," he said. But he says that the US attitude was different because it was a "nation at war".
But it might be different for senior commanders, Dannatt says. At that senior level continuity is at a premium, Dannatt says, but he stresses that combat troops should do no more than six months.
10.55am: As usual, the Chilcot inquiry has posted declassified documents. We're just going through these now. One striking document (pdf) is a report of a visit to Iraq by General Sir Mike Jackson, dated October 2005. He reports serious concerns about the helicopter fleet, which he says, in characteristically straight language, was "creaking badly". He goes on to say that soldiers may be forced to do longer tours of duty without rest because of the inability to transfer them out of theatre.
Servicability, flying hours and crew numbers are all factors, but the overall picture is one of an SH [support helicopter] force ill-matched to support our current operations ... If our SH capability is inadequate, our AT [air transport] fleet is worse. The airbridge to theatre is now so fragile that an efficient R&R [rest and recuperation] schedule is nigh impossible. Quite apart from the morale effect of indorinate delays, the difficulties with R&R are now beginning to impact significantly on the operational effectiveness of the division. The situation is so bad that I am asking HQ Land to re-examine whether we might not re-adopt four-month operational tours without R&R.
10.54am: Training the police was more difficult than training the army, Dannatt says.
US doctrine in Afghanistan and Iraq has moved to classic counter-insurgency. General Petraeus takes the credit for that, Dannatt says. He praises the way the US adapted so quickly. By contrast the UK army looked "flat-footed". We were doing the opposite at the time of the US surge. Between 2005-2007 the MoD's move to a central defence doctrine made us "less agile".
10.47am: Gilbert asks about military doctrine. Back in 2003-2004 our approach to training Iraqis was about training in barracks and not about embedding troops. This changed overnight from 2008, he admits. All of us in the chain of command didn't see that it would have been more effective to embed Iraqi troops, Dannatt says.
10.44am: Core equipment programmes should have changed to reflect the fact that the emergency situation of fighting two wars had become routine, Dannatt says.
He goes on to contrast the US troop surge in Iraq to the British policy of reducing troops in preparation for handing over to the Iraqis. He describes this as a "lumpy dilemma".
10:42 am: Here's some background about Snatch Land Rovers, which have been blamed for the deaths of up to 35 British soliders in Iraq. When Gordon Brown gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, he said that money was made available at every point when requests were made to fund new equipment. But this was disputed by other army chiefs who later gave evidence. A new £100m order for replacement vehicles was only made in March this year.
10.38am:Lady Prashar asked about the preparation. Dannatt said the Army had to prioritize the preparation of a tailor in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army should abandon the contingency training, he acknowledges and agrees that the scale and intensity of training was limited.
The availability of equipment also hit training, Dannatt adds. "Soldiers only met these new bits of equipment when they got into theatre ... that is verging on the unacceptable," he says.
It is not acceptable to have equipment taken off soldiers once their tours of duty end, he says.
10:34 am: Asked by Gilbert about Robert Fry's comments about the army becoming overstreched, Dannatt likens the army in 2006 to a car "running hot" and in danger of seizing up.
10.30am: Gilbert moves on to asking Dannatt about equipment. There has been a lot of comment about the suitability of the Snatch Land Rover, which developed out of its use on patrol during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Dannatt admits: "The Snatch Land Rover was significantly exposed from 2005 onwards in Iraq." He adds that the Snatch has still not been replaced.
10:29 am: Dannatt says a relatively benign situation in 2003 began to become more difficult in 2004, and became very difficult from the summer of 2005 in Iraq. With a desire to commit more forces to Afghanistan, Dannat says: "We were caught on the horns of a dilemma."
From late 2006 there was a "perfect storm" of increased insurgency, a reduction of troops in Iraq, and increased commitment in Afghanistan. The army was overstretched.
10:28 am: Afghanistan is arguably more important to get right, so the resource is especially important. "The two operations [in Iraq and Afghanistan] have always been a problem," Dannatt said. Afghanistan is more important, he adds. 'Afghanistan and the pressure on the army color all my thinking on Iraq, "he says.
10.20am: Sir Martin Gilbert now takes up the questions by asking about Dannatt's role during the Iraq campaign.
Dannatt says that during March/April 2004 the situation started to deteriorate in US-controlled Baghdad and the north of Iraq.
He describes a request from the US to put the British in charge of nine Shia provinces in the south of Iraq as "interesting".
There followed a hiatus of "non-government", he says. A decision was then taken by the government to refuse the request. But in June a decision was taken for Britain to take a major role in Afghanistan. "Wow, where did that come from?" Dannatt says he thought at the time.
10.15am: "Professionally I don't think we had any points to prove at all," Dannatt says, denying suggestions that there was a rush to war. "If you've had people killed and blown up around you, I don't think you rush into volunteering for another war."
If Britain had refused to commit a division, the US would have been disappointed, but the UK was stretched, Dannatt stresses.
10.11am:We would not rush to commit a heavy ground forces in Iraq, since the obligations in other places, said Dannatt drug.
"The desire of the army to field a division was not huge," he says. But he adds there was a bit of a feeling that if the US was going in, we, for professional reasons, wanted to go in too.
10.08am: Sir Roderic Lyne starts by asking Dannatt about the role of assistant chief of the general staff in the run-up to the invasion.
"He keeps the show on the road," Dannatt replies.
We had an "informal idea" of what was going on in terms of preparation for an invasion of Iraq, Dannatt says.
He says the general feeling during 2002 among the army was if we are going to get involved let's keep our involvement to a minimum.
He said the decision to commit the army to Iraq wasn't made until late 2002. Before that, the talk was all about giving air and naval support to the US.
9.37am: This morning the inquiry will hear from General Sir Richard Dannatt, an outspoken critic of the conduct of the Iraq war despite being the former head of the army.
Dannatt became an adviser to the Tories after stepping down as chief of the general staff last year.
Before that he was commander in chief land command and assistant chief of the general staff.
As early as October 2006 he called for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as he said they made security problems worse.
In an interview with the Daily Mail he said: "I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial successful war-fighting phase [following the invasion of Iraq] was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning."
"Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in.
\\ "This is a fact. I do not 't that the difficulties we are experiencing around the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them."
Later in speech to the Royal United Services Institute he took the criticism further by complaining that Britain failed to keep enough troops on the ground, failed to address the "window of consent" with the Iraqi people, and failed to link the training of local forces with actually fighting.
Following Gordon Brown's appearance before Chilcot earlier this year, Dannatt questioned the prime minister's assurances that all the army's demands for equipment had been met.
He said there had been "underlying underfunding that goes right back to the outcome of the defence review in 1997-98, when the Treasury didn't fully fund the outcome. It has gone on since then".
[[[Beyond Good & Evil]]]
Discription : Beyond good and evil takes you into an adventure beyond your wildest imagination. In another world, one woman only to reveal a conspiracy boundless desire for truth. You will help her to reveal this truth and stay alive in the process!
More review coming soon.
This is a funny story game.Excllent, Great gameplay.The game a bit strange to such a degree, but for the most part its great, very creative and imaginative. The only drawback of this game is that it was not 't they longer.Hopefully LL release' Further, they 've talked.
A video game has to be truly great to keep me interested enough to beat it 100%, completing all side quests and completing the story, this is one of those games. The story is great and will keep your attention while the game play and side missions are addictive, keeping your thumbs mashing buttons until there's nothing left to do. This is one of my favorite games on any console, I hold it up with FF VII, Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger, Skies of Arcadia, Resident Evil 4 ect. It's really a game worth the money, I know I picked up a brand new copy [...] years ago, you might be able to get a great deal on it somewhere.
I think the most iconic thing about this game it it's story. It's set on a planet that is being invaded by the Domz. These creatures are everywhere and you soon discover that there is a evil conspiricy hidden.
Buy Here (for discount) Beyond Good & Evil
Selling big society, the best blogs, and preview tomorrow's Society supplement
Full coverage: The (latest) launch of David Cameron's 'big society'
Cameron sets out vision of a great society
Video: Cameron sets out plan
Tim Bale: large community of U.S. imports
Voluntary groups wary after being hit by cuts
t Aditya Chakrabortty: more choice does not work
Today's top SocietyGuardian news and comment
Only one in 10 police officers on frontline, watchdog warns
'Locked-in' syndrome man demands right to die
Flu jab could be replaced by skin patch
Aids infection risk for women halved by gel
Mark Serwotka: defending civil service redundancy pay
Letters: restriction of methadone will encourage street drugs
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
Other news
?€? The Daily Mail once again worried about the people 's garbage. Today, he emphasizes how tips "secret" to rummage in families bunkers "a" waste audits " . And it reveals that the Tories may have to backtrack on an election pledge to end fortnightly bin collections.
Great Society: the reaction
Yesterday David Cameron (once again) outlined his vision for his "big society". The government might be only 11 weeks old but excuse us, David, if we feel like we've heard it all before. The Daily Mail certainly took that view, you might have expected it to get excited about the idea of a smaller state or locals doing it for themselves, yet the paper buried the launch at the foot of page 10 and didn't think it worthy of an editorial - preferring to fume about a man who was fined £1,500 for drowning a squirrel.
The Independent has taken a more forensic approach with its reporter Andy McSmith running through Cameron's announcement with a highlighter picking out what he really means:
David Cameron: The big society is about a huge culture change - where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace - don't always turn to officials…
Andy McSmith: There could be two reasons why you might not turn to officials for help in David Cameron's Britain. Either you have taken his exhortations to heart and become self-sufficient - or you cannot find the official you need, because so many of them have been sacked.
Cynicism and big society seem to go hand-in-hand, but ex-Blair adviser Matthew Taylor encourages us to give the idea a chance. He takes issue with Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband, who was rounding on the concept yesterday, accusing the coalition of "cynically attempting to dignify its cuts agenda by dressing up the withdrawal of support with the language of reinvigorating civic society". Taylor describes Miliband's comments as "Spartist":
"I'm sure this will go down well with the dwindling band of Labour activists and trade union paymasters. It may come across less well with a public which polls suggest is at least open minded about the big society…"
In addition, a blogger social affairs Julian Dobson warns against turning the large society in the "political football. He argues that the idea needs to "partisans" not politicians:
A large company can not do without the politicians, for all varieties. What is needed, because the guerrillas.
A partisan is a supporter or an enthusiast. In wartime, it's also a guerrilla fighter. Some of those skills - initiative, autonomy, risk-taking - will need to become the stuff of the big society if it is to be a voice of the people rather than of the powerful. The opportunity to pass real power and resources to local communities is too important to be lost in political skirmishing or the trench warfare of vested interests.
Finally, we can rely on Boris Johnson for an off-message wisecrack, as Paul Waugh reports:
Ever the joker, he couldn't resist diverting attention by airing a barbed gag that he's been making in private about David Cameron's idea for devolving power. Referring to the need to get obese 11-year-olds literally on their bikes, the mayor said: "We must tackle the scourge of obesity, or the 'big society' as it's sometimes known."
On the radar...
• Blogger and academic Tony Bovaird on the good news and bad news about public sector cuts, including this list of six top tips for surviving life in the age of austerity:
Don't get ill (just protecting NHS spend won't be enough to provide the likely number of future users with current service quality levels).
t Don 'to anyone you depend on the support of sick (or leave the neighborhood).
Be (very) good neighbors (perhaps those who need them much more in the future).
Start saving (if you need any public service in the future may not be able to obtain, or you may have to pay most of it, when you get it).
If you 're young, start learning a foreign language (probably have to go abroad, if you want the public works sector in the future - or the public service).
Take up 'easy access' leisure activities like walking and birdwatching â€" anything that requires public sector provision, like swimming or sports centres, may be too expensive for you or too far away from you in the future.
• David Clark, a Mercy on accountability and children services 's in the age of localism and deregulation:
"In my wilder moments I have thought that, under the banner of the government's transparency agenda, the job should be retitled: 'director of the council's children's services and of those other children's services that bother to turn up and tell me what is going on'".
Preview of tomorrow's SocietyGuardian supplement
• In Texas, reading courses are a new alternative to prison. But do they work?
• Disabled people want real jobs not special jobs
• Randeep Ramesh: Cameron's love affair with the third sector
• Ray Jones: NHS white paper creates opportunities for local councils
• Interview: Gail Cartmail on her bid to be the first woman leader of Unite
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