Examination of witnesses (Questions 324
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2000
AIR MARSHAL
SIR JOHN
DAY and AIR
MARSHAL MALCOLM
PLEDGER
Chairman
324. Air Marshal Pledger, you will be wise to
keep your mouth shut for the next few minutes. Air Marshal Sir
John Day, I find this rather distasteful that if you wish to join
in the political debate in national newspapers then that will
be reciprocated and responded to with interest. This Committee
and the very existence of this inquiry indicates obsession over
the years in looking after the welfare of our Armed Forces. The
last bunch of questions was on accommodation. Everywhere we go
we listen to complaints, and pass them on, about telephones, accommodation,
we deal with salaries, we deal with wide problems, we deal with
almost everything. We are here to represent the Armed Forces.
It is therefore rather distasteful for us to read that somehow
we are derelict in our duties in our recent Report on Kosovo.
We were accused in the Sunday Times[1],
amongst other things, of not taking sufficient care to report,
in essence, the facts, the poor hit rate of the RAF—I put
our hands up to that—we were accused of ignoring the bravery
of the airmen. Then you went on, "I feel sorry for the crews,
the support teams and the families after this Report", said
Day, "A lot of people went in under very heavy fire after
four hours in the air, then chose not to drop their weapons because
they could not be sure of not hitting civilians. None of that
courage is recognised in this Report." I will ignore the
first part of the article on our impending invasion of Kosovo,
of which nobody mentioned a word, not Mike Jackson, not Rupert
Smith, not the Secretary of State, not any single person who gave
evidence to us. I think I will not want to talk of this. We will
be inviting the Secretary of State to come and tell us what these
plans were hours away from an invasion. Who was going to be in
that invasion? At what point were they going to enter Kosovo?
Were the Americans going to be there? Did we have enough equipment?
A whole range of questions have been encouraged as a result of
reading the first part of the article written by James Clark,
the Home Affairs correspondent. As we are talking about personnel
issues and as we are alleged to have been derelict in our responsibility
in not mentioning the courage, the danger that our servicemen
and women were put into, then there are a couple of questions
I would like to ask you. Firstly, is this story representative
of what you said to either the Home Affairs correspondent James
Clark with additional reporting by Adam Nathan? Was that a true
reflection of what you said?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) Chairman, thank you for
the opportunity to respond. I have been misquoted. There is clearly
some truth in the report. The additional reporting, as I have
said, I have no idea where that came from, that has nothing to
do with me. If I can clear up the misquoting, with regard to the
bravery, et cetera, of the RAF crews that is, indeed, acknowledged
in your Report. The point I was making, I do not think is in the
press release, but you will probably be able to correct me on
that.
325. We never received a copy of the press release.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I did not make a press
release. The contribution of the crews and the support personnel
is in the body of the report. It does actually say—I can
almost quote your own words to you—that the Royal Air Force
pilots, and other air crew and support personnel operated, or
words to that effect, with distinction. All I was seeking to do
was to get that on the banner headlines as opposed to the banner
headlines that were running on the day your Report was launched,
which were much more along the lines of "Defence Committee
criticises RAF for disappointing performance". I believe
I have been misquoted, as I believe the Committee has been misquoted.
326. We are all subject to being misquoted and
this Committee misquoted. This was a tough Report and it appeared
even tougher by the way in which some of the national newspapers
presented it. You can see our concern, why I am angry and the
whole Committee is angry, Air Marshal. We have been charged with
not furthering the interests of our personnel and to be accused
in a report—I stand by every comma and every sentence in
this Report, it really had to be said—of ignoring the bravery.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) Can I just repeat what
I said? I have been misquoted. I did not say that the Committee
had ignored the bravery. I know the newspaper article probably
says that, but that—
327. You should do what we would be well advised
in doing. If you speak on the telephone to the press you should
do what Tony Benn does—have a tape recorder or be very careful
in what you say—because the moment you pick up a phone to
the press then you are putting your career, to an extent, on the
line and are subject to an uncomfortable morning with the Defence
Committee. The nicest thing I can say about this is you had not
read the Report when you commented on this because—I shall
remind you—you have probably seen the letter to the Sunday
Times, you certainly will have a copy of it. This is really deep
into the Report. Before we started talking about these issues,
paragraph 2, where we said, "During the campaign our own
forces repeatedly risked their lives." Paragraph 121, "The
considerable efforts of the RAF to keep collateral damage to a
minimum were largely successful." Paragraph 135, "The
number of munitions dropped by UK aircraft was significantly lower
than the NATO average. Respect for the rules of engagement shown
by our pilots, and their insistence on not dropping munitions
if at all uncertain of hitting their targets, may unfairly distort
the comparison." Paragraph 139, "Overall, despite the
heroic efforts of UK aircrew and support staff, we must conclude
that the UK's contribution to the air campaign, in terms of actual
firepower rather than support, was somewhat disappointing."
Paragraph 305, "UK pilots and other aircrew and support staff
discharged their mission with distinction." If I had taken
trouble to read every sentence I could have found more. Therefore,
I find the comments you made are all based on lack of having read
the Report. In the light of what I have said—and we will
give you a copy of the report to peruse much more closely—you
can see why we are deeply offended by these remarks. If you are
misquoted, may I respectfully suggest that you either write to
the Press Complaints Authority or write to the editor and tell
them what you said as opposed to the nonsense that appeared in
the Sunday Times last week, which does not reflect well
on either you or the Committee. All I would say is that somebody
put you up to it and perhaps you will tell us one day who actually
lined you up as the fall-guy for producing a response to our Report
based on lack of knowledge, misrepresentation or misunderstanding
of what we had said. If you would like to write to us further,
or if you would like to come along with the Secretary of State
when we discuss the other block of the Report, namely, the misinforming
of this Committee of what the Government and NATO had planned,
I am sure the Secretary of State will be delighted to bring you
along, because you are the author of this story, directly or indirectly.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I am certainly not the
author of the story, Mr George.
Chairman: You are the instigator, or
the person foolish enough to respond.
Mr Brazier
328. Did you or did you not say the verbatim
quote in quotation marks in the second paragraph of that article;
"It was three or four hours tops. That is how close we were"?
Is that a completely fictitious quote or not, that we were three
or four hours from launching an invasion?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I do not have a tape of
what I said, so I will be careful and honest in that somebody
may have a tape of it and pick that up. I do not believe I said
that. The fact of the matter is that we were within a few hours
of having to go public on the fact that we were about to take
shipping up from trade, and the report used the word "commandeering",
which is a different word altogether. We were within a few hours
of having to go public because we were going to take up ships
from trade, and Army and Territorial Army training plans were
about to be significantly revised so that the force of 54,000
could be prepared in time. We had reached the time lines where
if we, the United Kingdom, were going to stick with us, our own
nation, our own Army, being properly prepared, we were going to
need to do it. It happened that at that point—
Chairman: I think in future if you are
talking to a journalist it is better to talk to the defence correspondent.
At least he knows the difference between beginning a process and
a land invasion. We will all learn something from this.
Mr Cann
329. I have two questions. I am looking at the
Sunday Times.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) Yes.
330. The final paragraph quotes, "I feel
sorry for the crews, the support teams and the families after
this Report." Then moving on at the end you talk about the
courage clearly, and we all recognise that and the Chairman has
told you, at the end the quote is: "None of that courage
is recognised in this Report." The Chairman has just quoted
to you where we did recognise that. We worked hard on this Report
to get consensus to try and achieve something for the future,
and we do not like seeing things like that, because that makes
out that we do not support the Air Force and we did resolutely
all the way through the Report. I would like you to tell me, Sir,
if you would, whether or not, because they are in quotation marks,
you said those words or you did not say those words, and if you
did say them, what mechanism you have used so far to retract them?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I can answer the last bit
of your question first. I have not used any mechanism to retract
anything.
331. Do you not think you should?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) By the sound of it, Mr
George, feels I should, but I think that is a matter for the Ministry
of Defence, not just for me personally. I will certainly follow
it up.
332. You are quoted.
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I will follow that point
up. As I said at the beginning, I have been misquoted throughout
here. I acknowledge that some of the themes I spoke about to the
journalist are the themes in here. Obviously, there were a lot
of other things that we talked about. As I said in my initial
answer to Mr George, the main bit of the misquote is that I acknowledge
that it is in the Report. What I am saying is, or what I was saying
then, is that is not what came out in the media headlines.
333. It does not say that, it says, "None
of that courage is recognised in this Report."
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I have just said that I
acknowledge in the interview the bravery, and I quoted, almost
verbatim, the words to Mr George at beginning of this discussion,
so I know what the words were and I knew what the words were then.
My point is that that is not what was coming out in the media.
Mr Cann: We can only be responsible for
our own words.
Mr Hancock
334. I do not want to go on indefinitely, but
I do have some difficulty with what you have had to say today.
I do not believe they could have possibly got from the possible
commandeering or taking up of ships from trade to hours away from
a land invasion. You must have linked—
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I certainly did not link
it.
335. You are categorically denying that you
said—
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I categorically deny it,
because I think somewhere in here does it not say that the land
invasion needed to start on 15th September?
336. You are talking about Special Forces from
Britain and Italy? (Air Marshal Sir John Day) I never ever
mentioned Special Forces.
337. You are quoted directly. The problem I
have with this is that you are a senior officer with long experience.
You could not have possibly done this interview without taking
advice from either a senior officer or from a political steer.
Did you get that advice?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) No.
338. You did not?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) No. I was told to do the
interview.
339. Were you ordered?
(Air Marshal Sir John Day) I did not seek to do it.
I was asked to do the interview.
Chairman: The Air Marshal is digging
a deep hole for himself and I do not want him to dig any deeper.
Mr Hood: I feel I should desist from
saying what I was going to say, but to say this: I certainly do
not believe, and I do not think Members of this Committee believe,
Air Marshal, that you made the statement that you did without,
first of all, either being instructed to make it, or having what
you were about to say authorised, and that is what we now have
to look at as a Committee. I think it is very, very serious indeed,
and if there was withholding or misinformation by Ministers of
the Crown in evidence to this Committee, we are now in a very
serious situation indeed.
1 29 October 2000. Back
|
