UK armed forces damaged by Iraq war
Iraq-UK, Politics, 11/6/2007

Britain's armed forces are on a "dangerously unsustainable course" at a time of growing turbulence and risk, a leading think-tank warned yesterday.

In a report, entitled Out of Step, Demos said that popular sympathy for troops may not have been damaged by the unpopularity of the Iraq conflict and also criticized distorted expenditure and the failure of the UK to adjust to future threats.

"Stretched budgets remain tied up in big-ticket, high-profile, hardware while the 'software', the men and women who make up the armed forces, are overlooked," the report told ministers and military chiefs.

It suggested that Britain's armed forces are being let down by a lack of support from the public, while there had been a breakdown in the government's 'military covenant" that led to low pay and poor accommodation.

Anthony Forster of Durham University, who co-authored the report, said most expenditure like on aircraft carriers was "very expensive," when the priority should be human issues such as salaries, the chronic state of housing and support for military families, while there relatives were fighting abroad.

"If the priorities do not change then Iraq and Afghanistan may spell the end because generals, admirals and air marshals will be left with armed forces that are not fit for purpose," Forster warned.

The report suggested that a new "civil military compact" was needed to restore the covenant, warning that defense and security policies are "yet to catch up" with the new threats facing Britain.

Priority should be attached to the maintenance of a "general capacity for emergency action" on which the civil authorities can reliably depend, including a counter-terrorism role, it said.

The report, which comes after growing public concern that British troops are over stretched, warned that unpopularity of the Iraq conflict had affected recruitment and the willingness of parents to see their sons and daughters join the armed forces.

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