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Defensive errors | Peter Preston

Source: guardian.co.uk: The Guardian newspaper: Comment & debate

Jul 05, 2009

Summary

When an official at the MoD makes a duff call, the system ensures that no one takes the blame

Suppose you're a grieving family, one among many, day after day, and the man you love has just died in Afghanistan. Perhaps his troop carrier was too frail when a roadside bomb went off, perhaps a helicopter wasn't there on time. At any rate, as so often before, there are questions about the kit he was sent off to war with. You're sad, but you're also angry. Who do you blame?

The easy answer, of course, is those men from the ministry, the eternally faceless bureaucrats who are always getting it in the neck as they apparently fritter away billions on aircraft carriers, hi-tech fighter planes, nuclear subs and the rest. If the Vikings they'd provided had been Mastiffs, more fit for Helmand purpose, then surely things could have been different. Ask a learned friend what he thinks and maybe, depending on precise circumstances, there's a case you might bring to court.

Yet, in truth, that really isn't the point of the whole, tragic exercise. Money doesn't matter. This is a de

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