St Crispin’s Day

BBC NEWS | Politics | Smith ’sorry’ for migrants error

Great, Mea Culpa, so your sorry you sneaked in more people than you wanted to tell th public about in order to make the economy look better.

Not interested.  Tell me how we are going to get rid of them.  Tell me how your going to stop more coming.

BBC NEWS | England | London | MoD set to cut 1,000 staff jobs

Now, never let it be said that I am in anyway a fan of civil servants.  I’ve worked alongside them & for the most part they are far less able, motivated or dilligent as those in “real business, but. This is the equivalent of a factory manager laying off the work force when the order books are full.

I can’t recall a busier time for the MOD.  Two full scale conflicts requiring new procurement. Several large projects (like the carriers) on the near horizon.  It just smacks of lunacy?

If public sector needs cuts, then undo some of the waste in the NHS.

I’ve been here 7 days, and it seems like forever.

We had our first rocket attack after I’d only been here a day.  Basically you hear the siren , dive for the floor, and whilst laying there, get your body armour on. Three minutes after the last impact, you can get up & look for hardened shelter (or if you’re unlucky your legs!!).  Usually after about 5-10 minutes they sound the all clear.  The real pain is when this happens when you’re in bed!  We sleep in little “coffins” made out of breeze blocks so that if a rocket or mortar lands on YOUR bed, the blast doesn’t kill your buddies. 

 Body armour goes everywhere with you unless you go for a run.  It’s sat outside the loo cubicle, by the showers, stacked up in the food hall, and sat by your rowing machine in the gym!

So far we’ve had two attacks & one false alarm in a week, which is apparently the average at this time of the year. It has been worse, 4 months ago it was 5 attacks a DAY!!

The food is fine, but not as good as Afghanistan.  I’m managing to go to the gym pretty much every day, so that is a bonus!

We have most of what we need.  The facilities here are much better than in Afghanistan.  There are a few shops on camp selling the usual Arabic tat.  A couple of NAAFI’s so we can get toothpaste etc & sweets.  Also, there are a couple of ECHOS which are coffee shops run by a Dutch Christian mission to the services (although most of the staff are eastern Europeans).  They make fantastic milkshakes!!

Despite the rumours of a withdrawal, the contractors are building three huge cookhouses. These may be needed to feed the Yanks who will have to replace us, as clearly the job here in the South is nowhere near finished!  I can see a day in few months time when we all decamp to Kuwait to fly from there, and the politicians can claim that we’ve withdrawn from Iraq.

I’ll be here until December the 10^th and will be back in Afghanistan by the 5^th of Jan.

That’s all for now amigos.

Yes, you’re welcome to it!

Thanks to the contract civilian airline that took 2.5 days to get me here (It’s closer than Afghanistan & the RAF only took 39 hours to get me home from there!!!).

Thanks to the Al Mahdi lonatic who marked the end of Eid with a rocket attack on the base which just co-incided with my first evening here!!  I have now worked how to hit the ground whilst donning body armour at the same time!!

In a strange way I’m pleased to have experienced it, as it’s almost a right of passage to experience your first indirect fire attack.  Sadly, the second one the next day was taking it too far!

More news from Mesopotamia in the next few days.

Just to let you lovely readers know that St Crispin is off on his travels yet again.

This time it’s Iraq.  So peek in here every now anf again to see what snippets I can gain from that theatre of conflict?!?

A new initiative from the Royal British Legion.

A much needed campaign.  Please support it.

Visit the site to see what YOU can do. Click on the picture.

Mr. G Brown has never liked the troops, and yesterday’s announcement of cuts to troop numbers in Iraq was nothing to do with thier suffering, and everything to do with that old friend “spin”.  Brown has taken everything learned by Blair, and will continue to use it to his advantage.  As I suspect would any other flavour of government!

The facts: 1000 less troops by christmas?  Well 500 of these were already announced, and indeed 250 of the KRH had already returned home to Tidworth!

What we should keep a close eye on (HINT HINT tories!) is the numbers of military we currently have in Kuwait?!?

I suspect that these have been creeping up slowley over the last few months, and will continue to do so. We will need a presence in the are, and Basrah is only 50-70km from the Safwan border crossing so we could quickly come to the rescue of the badly infiltrated iraqi security forces when (not if) needed.

Rememebr being in Kuwait is no less punishing on a units moral & efficiency than being in Iraq, just a, it’s a bit safer (for now).

EDIT: Just saw this blog over at James Cleverly’s site.  I love the quote from unnamed Tory conference goer!