NICK HARVEY CALLS FOR SERIOUS QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED ABOUT THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS
April 17, 2007 4:53 PM
Following a Ministerial Statement in the House of Commons about the Iran hostage crisis Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesperson Nick Harvey MP stated that the greater issues should not be overshadowed by the issue of media coverage.
Although recognising that the media coverage of the affair had been an issue of national embarrassment and was a misjudgement by the Government, Nick Harvey called for more questions to be asked as a matter of urgency in the forthcoming inquiry about the original incident and focus to be placed on why the personnel were captured in the first place.
Commenting on the statement he said: "Now that our naval personnel are safely returned there are key questions that need to be addressed. In the forthcoming Fulton inquiry that Des Browne has promised we need to know: why there was inadequate cover? Why the helicopter returned to the boat? Why there were no other air or naval assets available to help and why was there not more coalition support? Moreover, based on a previous incident in 2004, what sort of risk assessment had been made prior to this episode, and what lessons were learned?
Indeed, now it is clear that there is a possible threat to our naval personnel, how prepared are our vessels to deal with future threats from Iranian vessels or insurgents?
In the upcoming weeks we need to see that serious efforts are being made to ensure that our troops are protected and supported on their missions and that it is impossible for this to happen again."
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats