By IRNA,
London : Substantial defence spending cuts while Britain is at war will result in “grave consequences,” Defence Secretary Liam Fox has warned in breaking with government policy.
In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, Fox spelt out that cuts risks seriously damaging the morale of troops and the reputation of the ruling Conservative Party, while revealing he would refuse to back such measures that are due to be announced next month.
‘Party, media, military and the international reaction will be brutal if we do not recognise the dangers and continue to push for such draconian cuts at a time when we are at war,’ he warned in the letter leaked to the Daily Telegraph.
His warning was that if such cuts go ahead, the ‘range of operations that we can do today we will simply not be able to do in the future.’
The letter was written ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of the National Security Council, where defence chiefs, the prime minister and the defence secretary considered the options in the current strategic defence and security review (SDSR).
In June, Fox warned in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that Britain is facing such a magnitude of budget cuts that the “pain” will have to be shared across the capabilities of all three of the country’s armed forces.
Illustrating the consequences of a ‘balanced reductions’ policy for the medium-term, RUSI estimated that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could face “a cut in total service personnel numbers of around 20-25 per cent by 2019.”
In August, the defence secretary also admitted that the British government’s plans to cut the size of the country’s army in line with necessary defence budget reductions were being hampered by the war in Afghanistan.
“Everything that we might want to do with the Army will be constrained by what’s happening in Afghanistan,” he said when warning that the government cannot afford to protect Britain against all potential threats to its security.
Responding to the leaked letter, former head of the British army Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, said that Fox is “very right to make a very strong case, particularly as we’re caught up in a very difficult operation in Afghanistan that has to be properly funded.”
‘I think that if the UK wants a significant role in the world, it has to have some significant means of power projection,’ Dannatt told the BBC Wednesday.
The National Security Council meeting did not make any final decisions on Tuesday, but reportedly will meet again after the Conservatives’ annual conference next week, just before the defence review is due to report.