14.1 |
Military equipment (post-conflict)
said by all
those involved with industry and the procurement process that
there
was nothing
available on the market to replace the sort of Snatch‑type
dimension
very
quickly.
“I think we
have already … mentioned the fact that even now the Ministry of
Defence
I
understand is deliberating between two contenders for effectively a
Snatch
replacement.
This is 2010. That was 2003/4.”346
659.
Gen Dannatt
continued:
“… it was
said by the people whose advice one had to take, ‘There is nothing
else
out there’.
I am not a scientist myself. If that’s what they say, one had to
accept that.
“Therefore
the next strand of argument was to really go for the work‑arounds
as
to how do
we protect our people with other vehicles? That’s where we get
into
the Mastiffs,
the Bulldogs … Many of these have been very successful.
Mastiff
very successful
… In the context of Iraq something that I found
counterintuitive
and had
to agree to while I was Commander in Chief was the Bulldog. The
old
430 lightly
armoured personnel carrier that I grew up as a platoon
commander
in the
early 1970s and I thought had had its day in the battlefield. When
I said,
‘We must
have a better vehicle’, eventually they came to me in middle 2005
and
said,
‘Commander in Chief, the best option that we can get into the field
quickly with
good protection
is to slap modern armour around a re‑engined 430 series
vehicle.
That’s the
best we can do’.
“I took a
very deep breath and said, ‘If that’s the best we can do, then
that’s what we
are going
to do’. For Iraq I think it played a significant
role.”
660.
When asked
about the Ministerial review into PPVs in 2006, why it had
taken
so long and
why it was a political rather than a military initiative,
Gen Dannatt told the
Inquiry:
“… it
wasn’t money and was not industry capacity … I think it was a
deficiency in
leadership
and energy in solving this problem … but really frustrating not to
be able
to get on
with this, and the fact we have still not closed with the issue in
2010.”347
661.
The Inquiry
asked Gen Dannatt about where that lack of leadership and
energy
resided. He
replied:
“… if you
were going to identify a requirement that needed resources thrown
at it,
which
couldn’t be funded immediately from the UOR process, it has to come
from
somewhere
else in the core MOD Equipment Programme. That meant
something
else had to
go and other people perhaps did not want to see other things
they
thought
were very important going.
346
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 49‑51.
347
Public
hearing, 28 July 2010, pages 54‑55.
113