Thursday 4 February 2010

A Short filleting

Iain Martin is rapidly heading for my "daily must-read" list. He savages Claire Short's testimony at the Chilcot enquiry:

I remember a senior Labour defense minister explaining to me bitterly after Iraq that Short’s department was only interested in the army if it was handing out food parcels and being nice to people. Otherwise, they weren’t interested in engaging much with the process. Demanding a properly rigorous curfew and robust military government until civic society could be rebuilt? Not really DFID’s scene. How, like, totally militaristic, man.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you've got a bit of time on your hands and you want to read about what troops on the ground had to deal with re DfID post invasion, head over to the Claire Short thread ARRSE

http://www.arrse.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/t=143279.html

Quotes like this for example.

"I recall the pain it took when dealing with DfiD to get anything actually done. Of having to prove "how the project furthered the human rights of women in post conflict Iraq", when all the Iraqis wanted was for the fecking well to be fixed so they could get sweet water."

Good God! Having to deal with New Lab social engineering on one hand and justifiably pissed off rioting locals on the other.

You've got to feel for our Khaki clad chaps and chapesses operating in that sort of environment.

Anonymous said...

Short?
Blair?
Short?
Blair?

One of them should hang by the testicles.