Former British army chief criticizes Defense Ministry for failing troops: report

Former head of the British Army General Sir Mike Jackson has launched a withering attack on the Ministry of Defense (MoD) for failing to give proper backing to troops risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to BBC reports on Thursday.

Speaking at the BBC's annual Dimbleby Lecture on Wednesday night, Jackson said British soldiers' wages were "hardly impressive" and "some accommodation" was "frankly, shaming", and he insisted that the MoD had failed to put them first in the way it ran the armed services.

He "did not feel the Department put soldier, sailor and airman and their families wholeheartedly in the forefront," said Jackson, who retired as Chief of the General Staff in August.

"Whilst acknowledging recent modest improvements, not much over 1,000 pounds a month for the private soldier for what he or she is doing on operations is hardly an impressive figure," he said.

"And some accommodation is still, frankly, shaming and hemmed around by petty regulation." he said.

Questioning the MoD's understanding of the fundamental ethos of the armed forces, he said, "one's loyalty must be from the bottom. Sadly, I did not find this fundamental proposition shared by the MoD."

Adding that the soldiers needed to be funded properly, he said, "It is our soldiers who pay the cost in blood; the nation must therefore pay the cost in treasure."

Britain's troops should be "properly equipped, thoroughly trained, decently paid, and together with their families, decently housed. They deserve nothing less," he said.

"There is a mismatch between what we do and the resources with which we are given to do it," he said.

As for Britain's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said Britain had a moral obligation not to "cut and run" in these two countries.

"What we cannot do is cut and run from these strategic campaigns before it is right to do so," he said.

Commenting on a report published on Wednesday by the Iraq Study Group in the United States, he said, "to leave Iraq before the Iraqi security forces are fully able to deal with the current violence would be both morally wrong and a fundamental strategic mistake."

A spokesman for the MoD said, "General Jackson is fully entitled ... to voice his opinion on these important issues."

"While we do not agree with everything Sir Mike has said, we are always the first to recognize - for example in relation to medical services and accommodation - that although we have delivered real improvements, there is more we can do," he added.

Currently, Britain has some 7,000 troops in southern Iraq, most in the Basra area and around 800 in Maysan province, and around 4,500 in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Source: Xinhua