Not quite like that Mr Editor

This is from today's Daily Telegraph. Long and rather narrow in appeal but it gained second editorial in a responsible newspaper and got my liver moving towards a dangerous episode. As I said elsewhere, 'if you prick me, do I not bleed'

Who protects soldiers?(Filed: 22/07/2005)
The Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police is feared throughout the Army. No harm in that. Recently, however, it is becoming hated - and that is highly undesirable. The hatred stems from its use by the civil legal authorities to prosecute cases against soldiers serving in the field. That is not what soldiers believe to be the SIB's proper role.
Historically, the SIB concerned itself with misappropriation of public funds, theft of valuable stores, sexual predation by seniors against juniors - what the Army recognises as "crime". In recent years, however, "crime" has come to include offences against human rights legislation, as defined by the International Convention on War Crime. At present, the SIB is proceeding against several soldiers of the Irish Guards and the Parachute Regiment, and is mounting a major case against the commanding officer and several soldiers of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment for offences allegedly committed against civilians in Iraq.
Six former chiefs of the defence staff spoke in the House of Lords last week to denounce this development. As Admiral Lord Boyce put it, expressing a collective view, the motivation for the latter case appears to be subservience to political correctness. No one is suggesting that soldiers who mistreat prisoners or civilians should escape legal penalty. Equally, however, no one should suffer legal penalty because the Government seeks to demonstrate to its international partners, particularly to the legal panjandrums of the European Court, that it is marching in step with current legal fashion.
Soldiers are aggrieved by the SIB's detachment from any sense of soldierly fellowship. No one wants military law to be tempered by cronyism. What the accused are encountering, however, is a chilling loneliness. The SIB is dilatory in bringing charges and in pressing investigation, it is suddenly reviving cases that appeared to be settled, it is unfrank in its methods and secretive in its use of evidence.
Soldiers who find themselves in the toils of the SIB discover that they have no friends in high places on their side.
It is entirely characteristic of the current highly undesirable situation that it was left to retired officers to speak up. Senior serving officers have demonstrated that they think discretion the better part of valour when it comes to defending their own men. They should currently be examining their consciences. It will add to the disgrace of the spectacle of British soldiers cowering before the threat of legal penalty for bearing arms in an unpopular war if those to whom they look for protection are currently more concerned with protecting their retirement privileges than their own soldiers.

Let me declare an interest. I was a member of the SIB from 1953 until retiring as a WOI (RSM) in 1974. During that time I served in most of the places where the British army was engaged in anti-terrorist-type operations. From mid-1970 until the end of 1971 I was in charge of the unit deployed to Northern Ireland. The relationship between the SIB and the Army was often difficult. Soldiers did not want to see a career ruined by a criminal record and commanding officers were not keen in having the problems of their unit published far and wide. These attitudes were acknowledged and, in the main, SIB was able to function to meet the responsibilities allocated to them. One thing should be made clear – the Branch does not charge soldiers and does not even decide what offences may have been disclosed. Reports go to a legal authority who frame charges to be brought by the offender’s Commanding Officer. Where the editorial claims “In recent years, however, "crime" has come to include offences against human rights legislation, as defined by the International Convention on War Crime” is a touch creative. What has really happened is that someone has been unlawfully killed, injured to some physical degree or forced to undergo some humiliation. These are criminal offences well covered by the laws of the country. They may, in certain circumstances, fall within what are described as crimes against human rights because an international organisation has lumped them together in such a manner. The actual SIB investigations go to prove or disprove whether a homicide has taken place, someone has been injured or humiliated. These are perfectly normal enquiries albeit they took place within the fog of war or warlike situations.
I am quite certain that no one would be satisfied if the investigations were undertaken in anything less than a rigorous and professional manner. Think here of the criticism that police services have come under in cases such as Lawrence and the Yorkshire Ripper. There is often someone who will suggest that freemasonry has involved itself in police discipline matters. Investigators from SIB have excellent training and resources. The army has very few serious criminals within its ranks as such individuals are ejected without sympathy or the resources devoted to civilian offenders. They are fully aware of the boundary between what is self-protection and what is criminal behaviour in battle-field type circumstances. Talk of the heat of the battle is rarely appropriate when one thinks back to the circumstances surrounding those offences we know of such as Camp Breadbasket where civilians were given a taste of service discipline. Offenders have to be recognised and dealt with. To delegate such matters to some other police service would remove, even further, the investigator from any experience of military life and attitudes. Given the length of time the Iraq confrontation has been running and the large numbers of troops deployed, the few soldiers mentioned in the editorial does not suggest a major discipline problem. If the vast majority can carry out their duties in a proper manner, why should the name of the British army be desecrated by a few irresponsible soldiers?
More attention should have been given to explaining to commanders and soldiers why SIB have to do what they do and why the Whitehall warriors – who, believe me, certainly exist – engage in second-thinking and persist in flogging a near dead horse. Someone said recently that the crimes of the war in Iraq reach right up to 10 Downing Street – but that is politics and there I do not really know what I am talking about. By all means, see the SIB as the jolly Laughing Policeman or a Run Them In musical comedy parody but they never have been Svengali-like self-righteous bigots seeking or deserving hatred.