27 December 2006 Blog Home : December 2006 : Permalink
Officially, the Ministry of Defence insists that a final decision about whether second lieutenant Harry will be allowed to fight in Iraq has yet to be made.
The Prince has always said he is determined to do battle with his 100-strong unit, A Squadron of the Blues and Royals — part of the Household Cavalry.
They begin a six-month tour of Iraq in the spring. And before that, they are expected to take part in war games and exhaustive preparations for conflict.
The decision over the young Royal is deemed so important it will be made by the Army’s top man, Chief of the General Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt.
But a bandwagon of popular support is growing among the ranks to allow Harry to fulfil his dream of active service. Despite alarm over the possibility of putting the Prince’s life in danger, top brass will find that hard to refuse.
I hope that he does in fact go to Iraq but, as the Sun notes, later on in the article, there is a little problemette:But the most convincing argument AGAINST Harry seeing action in Iraq is the attention it will attract to his troop from suicide bombers. A target of the third in line to the British throne will be a magnet to fanatics for hundreds of miles around.
What the Sun fails to mention is that the suicide bombers would find it easier to attack 2nd Lt H Windsor than they would if he were in some other army. As Richard North at the EU Referendum blog, has written about repeatedly (those being merely the last three) the scandal is that the British armed forces are not only poorly equipped but also that the government and MoD paperpushers seem unwilling to admit that this is the case and adjust spending appropriately. Blair has used the armed forces a lot but he has done a piss poor job of ensuring that their equipment is up to snuff and appropriate fort he missions that he demands they perform. One particular scandal is the "Snatch" land rover used to patrol in Iraq which is utterly unprotected against the suicide bombers, IEDs or snipers which attack British patrols.