20 December 2004
The Prime Minister has paid tribute to the Armed Forces for their ‘professionalism’ and for doing a ‘fantastic job’ in what can sometimes be dangerous circumstances.
Read the interview with British Forces Radio in full below:
Interviewer:
It has been quite a year for the Forces and you mentioned Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, although troop numbers are slightly smaller in the Balkans, and you also touched on future Army structure there. Lord Guthrie, the former CDS, spoke about the Army particularly getting dangerously too small, I think were his words. Do you agree with him on that?
Prime Minister:
I think we have got to be constantly on our guard in respect of that. The actual Army numbers aren’t really going to change much over the next few years, and indeed hopefully there will be a reduction of what we need to do in Northern Ireland. I think the restructuring is genuinely to do with trying to have more flexible Armed Forces and to offer greater stability for people in the Armed Force in terms of their family life. I think the actual size of the Army we have just got to keep under constant review. They do do a fantastic job. They are a major part of our foreign policy as well as the defence of this country but I think even with a rising Defence Budget the establishment that we have got at the moment is about right.
Interviewer:
You mentioned Northern Ireland there, General Sir Mike Jackson told BFPS last week that some of the cuts in the infantry battalion are conditional on normalisation in Northern Ireland. Now you more than most know how tortuous the peace process can be. The infantry changes will occur over the next 4 years, so can we conclude that normalisation will have happened in the Province by the end of that?
Prime Minister:
I hope very much - of course it is proceeding apace as it is - there have been substantial troop reductions in the last few years but though we haven’t got all the final bits of the process in place, I think there is a new atmosphere in Northern Ireland and has been for several years, so we will be able to reduce numbers. Of course it is dependent on the security situation there, but I also think the most important thing about the restructuring, and in the end I was faced with the decision as to whether, as it were, to overrule what were proposals and propositions essentially coming from the Army who were saying that the system that we are operating up to now just isn’t fit for purpose for the future, but we act very closely on the advice that they are giving us, and their advice is this can be done properly and obviously it is contingent on that normalisation in Northern Ireland but we do anticipate that happening.
Interviewer:
Could I just ask one final question. One thing that has changed over the last few decades in public seems to be that the political leaders are held more directly responsible for casualties. Before - and one thinks of the First World War - it was senior officers and now the blame seems to go to Ministers and Prime Ministers. I just wondered what sort of burden that puts upon you personally?
Prime Minister:
Well, whatever the burden on me personally, the primary burden is shouldered by the Armed Forces themselves and in particular by their families if soldiers are lost. It is a changing set of circumstances. 18 months ago when I was in Korea and I visited the memorial there and you take account of the fact that in a war people don’t actually remember in the same way say as any of the Great Wars or even a more recent conflict like the Falklands or the Gulf War - over 3,000 British soldiers lost their lives in that Korean War. And now that scale of casualties would be absolutely unthinkable for us, so I think we do live in changed times, and I think there is greater questioning and often greater criticism of political decisions that are taken. The thing that I always find though is that whatever is happening with people speaking and criticising, when you actually go and talk to the Armed Forces themselves, the soldiers actually doing the job, their commitment and their professionalism and their willingness to face danger and pay the ultimate price, if it is necessary to get the job done, is extraordinary, and it is the one thing that I think I am very, very lucky being the British Prime Minister, because I think that for many of my colleagues in other countries today they would not have the same confidence and strength in their Armed Forces and I am very, very lucky to be in that position. But I am conscious the whole time of the fact that you are putting people in positions of danger, and as we have seen in Iraq, people lose their lives, although I think that it is also true that if we had maybe a more balanced picture of what is actually happening in Iraq people would also see the tremendous gains at stake for us if we can succeed in Iraq.
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