Friday 24 August 2007

Col. Bob Stewart, a former UN Commander of British Forces in Bosnia, investigates the role of the Territorial Army, civilians in uniform, in today's highly dangerous military operations. At the British Forces base in Basra, Iraq, he meets the bank managers, mortgage advisers, road workers and teachers who are now risking their lives on the frontline - with the base facing an average of five insurgent missile and mortar attacks every day.

Col. Stewart discovers a woeful lack of funding, training and support for these volunteers who are being thrust, under-skilled, into an increasingly risky war-zone. He reveals the way in which the TA has been transformed from a reserve land-force with its own hierarchy and structure to a recruitment agency providing individuals to plug the gaps in the ranks of the regular army.

Without the proper training, TA soldiers are a danger to themselves and to the regular army they serve alongside. In Basra, Col Stewart meets a bank manager who is serving with a Warrior tank unit - despite never having been trained on armoured vehicles in the UK. And with the latest cuts of £5 million to the TA's budget, Julian Brazier MP, himself a former TA member and currently co-chair of the cross-party Armed Services Committee, warns Col Stewart the situation is set to only get worse.

Many of the TA soldiers serving in Basra are on their second tour of duty, but with hostilities now far more inflamed, some of them are thinking twice about serving again. Tank commander Lance Cpl Shane Davies, whose day job is at Directory Enquiries, tells Col Stewart: "After serving in Iraq in 2003 previously, I would say, yes I'd do it again because it was quite a peaceful tour, getting out on the streets, intermingling with the locals. Having come on this operation, it is a bit more different. The hostilities are a lot greater and there is a lot, there have been more fatalities than ever before for our battle group."

Over the last ten years, 20,000 members have left the TA. One reason cited by a former member, Phil, is the appalling lack of support for the families left at home whilst their partners are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. "I was led to believe that there was this welfare machine there to support your family. And in actual fact no-one picked up the telephone to say, 'Are you OK? Do you need anything doing?' And that was exceptionally frustrating, to think that it was just neglected."

Col Stewart discovers there is a more fundamental malaise in the management of the TA that is sapping morale and leading many to quit. He meets a former TA mechanic who served in Iraq in the invasion in 2003, but last year quit in disgust because of the role this once proud volunteer army is being asked to perform. He tells Col Stewart: "Its role now is to provide spare parts for the army...On paper it's probably a very good idea. In reality it's causing all sorts of problems and ultimately will be the death of the TA."

Professor Richard Holmes, former TA Brigadier and the military historian who has advised both the All Party Parliamentary Reserve Forces Group and the Public Accounts Committee on the TA, is also concerned about the future viability of the organisation. The TA used to send complete units into operations - TA junior ranks led by TA officers.

Now that it is being used more as a labour pool for the depleted regular army, he argues there is little incentive for the officer class to continue volunteering. He tells Col Stewart, "When I was young, flogging my way up the ranks of the TA, I'd always got that challenge, that sense of pride, that sense of achievement, the chance of commanding something. I look at the TA now, I wonder in all conscience, and it pains me to say this, I wonder if I would feel that now."

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