Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, said the navy had planned for a six-month commitment but that the government would have to make "challenging decisions" about what it wanted to do thereafter.
Stanhope also conceded that if the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets had not been mothballed last year, they would have been deployed to the Mediterranean.
This would have been cheaper – and made operations more reactive – than flying planes from the Italian base at Gioia del Colle, he said.
But he insisted the constant jibes about the loss of the ship and the aircraft were having a "corrosive" effect on navy morale. "There is far too much about what could have been," he said.
Stanhope's remarks come amid growing concern within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the prolonged nature of the Libya effort and its cost. They also come just days after the US defence secretary Robert Gates mocked some allies for already running out of ammunition.
Link to video report HERE.
Stretch - stretch - stretch-----.
ReplyDeleteTalk about stretching ones self toooooo thin.
Just as G.B. was ready to pull out of the other Western wars. [wink]
They dive head first into Libya.
We do not need economic austerity.
We need endless war austerity.
Just the scrapping of the Trident System alone would pay off Scotland's debt. It will happen when we get independence. Maybe not scrapped worldwide but we won't be paying towards the pretence.
ReplyDelete