This is a betrayal of our servicemen and women and it is ruining lives
HAS there ever been a betrayal of our servicemen and women quite like this?
I have only just started chairing my parliamentary select committee inquiry into the post-operational support given to our Armed Forces personnel undergoing the judicial process, and I feel deeply ashamed.
Strong men now confined to mental health facilities; families broken; spirits broken; minds broken; lives and careers destroyed. For what?
I have no problem with prosecution for offences – I encourage it to maintain the standards we all aspired to on the battlefield. But almost 1,500 cases are now before the Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat), including hundreds of unlawful killing investigations, implying, if true, a total breakdown of law and order on an unprecedented scale across the British Army in Iraq. It is fantasy. And it is ruining lives.
Most of these people have been thoroughly investigated already, some twice.
Now some find out they are being referred for prosecution for a third time not from the military chain of command, but from their friends, in conversation. And no, that’s not a story from the chaos of 2004, but something that has happened just this week past. This proud military nation is sacrificing her soldiers on an altar of bureaucracy and faux international obligations ridiculed by our Allies. It is a self-inflicted disgrace.
And it’s the lack of support for servicemen and women that really gets me – hence my inquiry.
According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) all those going through the process have ample support. The trouble is that this is an utterly false statement, otherwise so many wouldn’t be nursing broken minds and seething with betrayal. Senior officers to junior soldiers have volunteered to come and tell me about it; the MoD has refused them permission.
This fight of mine in Parliament around how we look after our service people is proving far harder than I ever thought it would. And it’s not because I don’t understand the complexities of the place. Sometimes us legislators are required to show the same core values, the same loyalty and the same patriotism we ask of our Armed Forces every single day.
If only we could demonstrate these values for just one day soon and shut this fatally flawed process down.