Mr Cameron MUST stop these vile witch-hunts against our brave troops

From a former Armed Forces minister who’s Winston Churchill’s grandson, a blistering call to arms . . .

OVER the past few years, I have been watching the disturbing growth of an insidious enemy, an enemy that represents a very real danger to the fighting capability and morale of our Armed Forces.

This is an enemy that seems to have almost magical powers. Not only can it slow down an infantryman in the thick of a firefight, but it could also cause a Typhoon pilot not to drop his bombs or the captain of a destroyer not to engage with a threatening vessel.

Furthermore, it is an enemy feared by every serviceman and servicewoman in this country. Worse still, it is an enemy many will continue to fear even after they have hung up their berets.

The enemy to which I am referring is not ISIS or, indeed, any form of terrorist or conventional combatant.

No, for this is an enemy that carries neither bombs nor bullets — but bundles.

These bundles consist of legal documents and supposed evidence gathered by an army of ambulancechasing lawyers, and which are then thrown like grenades at soldiers who are supposed to have committed the most heinous war crimes and vile abuses while they were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though there can be no doubt that every soldier should, of course, obey the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement, it is to my genuine dismay as a former Army officer and Armed Forces minister that our troops should be subjected to lengthy, spurious and stressful legal probes that have little to do with military reality and justice and everything to do with enriching grandstanding lawyers.

Absurd

Just yesterday, we learned of a new and particularly fatuous example of this vile and unpatriotic witch-hunt.

Indeed, the case is so absurd, I cannot believe it is under investigation. But then, in many ways — as we have seen with the disgraceful treatment of Lord Bramall (and Scotland Yard’s bungled child sex probe) — the world really may have gone mad.

According to a newspaper report, a British sniper is under investigation by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) for not shouting a warning at an insurgent about to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at a British base.

I really should not need to spell this out, but one of the attributes of a successful sniper is that he makes no sound at all — nor, indeed, shouts out warnings!

Snipers are not armed policemen: they are soldiers operating in war zones in the most difficult and often the most dangerous conditions, in which both sides know that the fundamental dynamic is to kill or be killed.

The sniper, whom I understand is a long- standing and very experienced veteran, would have known this, and I’m quite sure the now dead insurgent knew it as well.

Furthermore, in an account given by the pressure group UK Veterans One Voice, the killing of the insurgent took place under quite clear Rules of Engagement, which stipulated that ‘ no warning was required’.

So why on earth are we in the absurd and completely unjustified position in which this case is being investigated by IHAT?

Before I try to answer that question, we should remember that the case of the sniper is just one of more than 1,500 cases that are being examined by this outfit. That is a number that is likely to rise, if the last quarterly report issued by IHAT is anything to go by.

Last November, the team revealed that between July and September last year, a bewildering 712 further victims of supposed abuses and alleged murders by the British Army were added to its caseload.

The idea that the British carried out hundreds of war crimes in Iraq is, of course, utterly without foundation and grossly unfair.

It plays into an anti-military narrative, tediously propagated by a cabal of Left-wing lawyers and donation-hungry Labour politicians, that would have you believe, in a display of egregious moral relativism, that our troops are just as bad as their enemies, or perhaps even worse.

Let me be clear: this witchhunt has nothing to do with whether we were right to fight the war in Iraq.

Horrific

And, once again, I should stress that it is absolutely incumbent on every British soldier to obey the Laws of War. I know, as a former serving officer, that our troops are extremely well disciplined and well led, and they take the correct treatment of prisoners very seriously.

If they don’t — they should be dealt with. But remember, our troops carry out the most difficult duties in often horrific environments and, by and large, get it right.

But what this has everything to do with is greed. It shows not only a rapacious hunger to tap a seemingly bottomless trough of cash, but also a really nasty desire to denigrate the men and women who fight for those very liberal standards that enable lawyers in societies such as ours to operate so freely.

The effect on those who are under investigation is clearly highly detrimental, very unfair and causes years of stress and anxiety.

But, furthermore, the knowledge that they are just as likely to be hit by a writ as by a bullet will have an unmeasurably crippling effect on soldiers in the field.

The constant fear of a lawyer’s letter five years down the line will make many fight with one arm behind their back or cause them to lose vital seconds in the rushed and confused heat of combat as to whether or not they should engage the enemy.

If we are to allow this post- war self- flagellation to continue, then the confidence and morale of our troops will be undermined — in some cases, fatally.

It is one thing to go into combat, but quite another to go in with the sapping knowledge that what you do in the next few chaotic minutes or hours in the name of your mates, your regiment, your country, might also see you dragged into court.

This woeful state of affairs must not be allowed to continue. So, what can we do?

Unfortunately, there is no way we can stop the cases currently being investigated by IHAT.

That would clearly only make the world think we have something to hide and play into the greasy palms of those who seem to love denigrating their fellow countrymen who fight to keep us all safe.

But there is one man who can do something, and that is the Prime Minister.

Confidence

Here and now, I am asking him — and the Secretary of State for Defence — to ensure that in the future, our servicemen and servicewomen in all branches of the military can go to war with the utmost confidence.

This means a clarity derived from a sure knowledge that they will not face legal repercussions from carrying out their duties.

This should be amplified by the fact that all rules will be fair, unambivalent and will enable soldiers, sailors and airmen to operate with the kind of conviction for which the British military has always been renowned.

Above all, we need a guarantee from the Prime Minister that never again will there be a historico-legal witch-hunt that merely serves to enrich opportunistic lawyers and provide succour to pacifist politicians.

By all means prosecute genuine criminality, but when we trust a highly trained soldier with a rifle, let’s not put a splint around his trigger finger. We owe him that, at the very least.