'Delays carry consequences': Time to deploy Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon slammed amid Iran strikes
.jpg?width=96&crop=1:1,smart)
The government has been criticised for the amount of time it took for a Royal Navy destroyer to be deployed to Cyprus - days after hostilities broke out in the Middle East.
David Reed, former Royal Marine and current Conservative MP, slammed defence secretary John Healey over the deployment of HMS Dragon. The Type 45 warship left Portsmouth on March 10. more than a week after a kamikaze drone hit RAF Akrotiri.
After originally being set for a spell on the side-lines before taking charge of Nato’s Standing Maritime Group 1, the warship was supplied and operational in six days, with military personnel and civilians working round the clock to make it happen.
The criticism comes from not deploying naval assets to the eastern Mediterranean sooner. Weeks before the conflict began, the remaining Gulf minehunter HMS Middleton returned to Portsmouth without a replacement. The Times reports that bosses in the Royal Navy are furious with the way the Middle East crisis has been handled, after US-Israeli strikes on Tehran left the UK flat-footed. The national publication reports that opportunities were missed to deploy capabilities such as HMS Anson and others.
A source said there was a contingency plan to deploy a Type 45 destroyer, as it was capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, but the recommendation was not passed to Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, until March 3 at 9.30am. Two days earlier, a drone thought to have been launched from a pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon or western Iraq, hit an RAF Akrotiri hangar that housed two US U2 spy planes.
A source said to The Times that the US ordering the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford to the Middle East, and amassing other ships there a month earlier, should have been the signal to be prepared. Before HMS Dragon has set sail, the French had its aircraft carrier and escorts already in the region having been redeployed from operations in Sweden.
Mr Reed, MP for Exmouth and Exeter East, was frustrated by the delay. Speaking in the House of Commons today (March 16), he said: “Why was that decision not taken sooner? Given the Royal Navy advised deploying assets earlier, which minister took the decision not to act on that point?”
Mr Healey responded: “Once it became clear of the nature and scale of the indiscriminate and widespread Iranian response, we altered and adopted further actions. The deployment of HMS Dragon was part of that. I took the decision to give that go-ahead on the same day that the Chief of Defence Staff offered that to ministers as an option.
“If he’s concerned about the state of the British Navy, he should look at the record of his own government. They cut the number of frigates and destroyers by a quarter, cut the minehunters by more than half, and cut defence spending by £12bn in their first five years. It’s our job now to fix these problems. While they were hollowing out our armed forces, we are rebuilding them.”
Mr Reed said in a parliamentary written answer on March 9, the minister for the armed forces confirmed that discussions took place before the decision to deploy HMS Dragon. “We know those conversations happened, and the Royal Navy put forward recommendations,” he added. “When British personnel are under threat, these delays carry consequences. Can the secretary of state confirm to the house which minister chose not to act on that advice sooner, and why?”
The defence secretary replied: “As I have told this house more than once, and the Chief of Defence Staff said the weekend before last on the BBC, the day that this was put to ministers as an option, we took action to protect British lives, allies, and citizens right across the region.”