If there is one message that has come out of the last week of news it’s that accidents happen in war. News services have recanted that mantra ad nauseam. Every known manner of specialist, expert, serving officer or rent-a-quote former general has been wheeled out to add weight to the argument, all in an attempt to quell the backlash and anger at the death and subsequent cover up (which the MOD denies) of Lance Corporal Matty Hull near Basra in March 2003.
Of course, these people are right. Accidents happen in all walks of life. The difference is when I delete the finished column a minute before deadline nobody gets killed. In fact, nobody aside from my editor and me even get particularly flustered. If you mess up a piece of coursework, if your lecturers forget their notes, you carry on. Only in a few professions, heart surgery for example, are lives put at risk by human error.
The military, by its very nature, is another one. It is understandable that errors are going to be made, and when you’re making misjudgements at 400 knots, 5,000 feet up in the air and with laser guided rockets strapped under you there are going to be fatalities.
So, when oxymoronic friendly-fire incidents occur, people can, to an extent, understand. People understand human error, people understand panic, they understand fear. When the situation is happening right there in front of you, with shells flying around, fuel running down and the potential to have your gentle shuffle from the mortal coil turned into a firey and sudden departure; then people can understand mistakes.
Things that people can’t understand are cover-ups, lying to dead servicemen’s families and why mistakes can be made in the twenty-first century and treated as if there is just nothing to be learned from the sacrifice of a British serviceman.
Accidents happen and every time they happen it is essential that there is a full and open inquiry, that the family is fully co-operated with and that politics and practicalities so that 4 years later the newly-released video and transcripts are not released via a daily red top whilst the families have been told that a tape doesn’t even exist.
The way that the Ministry of Defence has handled the issue is shameful, and there is no question of that no matter how you see the individual facts. Acquiescence to the USA completely in the face of the interests of the inquiry and the families wishes is a disgrace.
Moreover, the government needs to look long and hard at spending on technology that could have saved L/Cpl Hull’s life, especially interoperability and communication between the British and American forces. If we want to travel the world from the turret of a challenger and with the USA our constant companion then some political and financial issues should be put to one side to think about being able to work with them.
That day in 2003 the controller on the ground thought that there were no friendlies in the area, or so he informed the pilots. If there is another friendly fire incident, and there will be, it’d be nice to think that it would not be for this reason again, and that the government would co-operate fully with the inquiry and fight for the family.
If you ask your soldiers to fight your wars and lay down their lives at the hand of your chosen allies, it’s the least you owe them.
