Hoon: no defence

AMIDST the turmoil now engulfing the Blair leadership and the deepening crisis in Iraq, one member of the government will certainly be carrying on regardless, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

After a year of the Iraq imbroglio and troubling revelations about the shortage of vital equipment for troops fighting the war; months of disturbing allegations about the treatment of civilians at the hands of our forces; and a week of confusion over whether the ministers in charge of the department even knew about the claims, it should not take a MORI poll to work out that the Ministry of Defence’s decline after five years under Hoon is continuing apace.

Perhaps the department considered by less than one in four people to spend taxpayers’ money wisely should make its best investment of all and commission MORI to give the definitive assessment of what the nation thinks of the man who is supposed to be in charge of it.

Hoon demonstrated once again last week his questionable value to the government - and to the nation - with a thoroughly unconvincing response to mounting evidence that ministers had been warned of the ghastly treatment that may have been meted out to Iraqi civilians by British forces. In a nutshell, he didn’t know anything about it: the grisly claims, notably a devastating Red Cross report detailing a string of allegations about the fate of Iraqi prisoners in British-run jails, had, in effect, passed him by.

To seasoned Hoon-watchers, the astonishing defence is nothing new. When it comes to breathtaking arrogance, studied ignorance and passing the buck, the Defence Secretary is in a class of his own. This is a man who airily insisted to the Hutton Inquiry that he had not known of any plan to "out" weapons scientist David Kelly as the likely source of an incendiary BBC report into the government’s case for war in Iraq. Until, that is, his own aide revealed that Hoon had been at a key meeting where the strategy had been discussed.

Throughout the inquiry into the furore which eventually led Kelly to commit suicide, the man in charge of the MoD bullishly maintained that the treatment of the scientist in his final days was "a staff matter", the responsibility of his officials and thus not his concern. In a botched damage-limitation exercise, Hoon later declared that Kelly was "no martyr" and speculated that he may have taken his life because he feared he would be exposed as a liar.

Hoon also clung to the claim that the operation to supply British troops during the Iraq conflict had been "a logistical success" in the face of a welter of revelations about the failure to get crucial kit to frontline soldiers. Even then, he had to be press-ganged into apologising for the lack of body armour that led directly to the death of Sgt Steve Roberts, who was shot while trying to quell a riot in Iraq.

Among a lengthening list of curious political decisions made by a once-sure-footed Prime Minister, Geoff Hoon’s appointment to the Cabinet stands out; but his longevity in the job is perhaps the most startling single act. Hoon, a dull Blairite, was originally seen as a convenient stop-gap between the departing Lord Robertson and John Reid; as a loyal lightweight who could easily be reshuffled out at any moment with little objection. But Hoon has stayed around, while a series of more formidable colleagues, including Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers and Peter Mandelson, have left Blair’s side, either pushed or falling on their swords. Within the higher echelons of the MoD, "Buff" Hoon is regarded as an inconsequential boss whose only quality is that he can be relied upon to fight their corner.

In four and a half years "Geoff Who?" has learned enough about dodging the flak to become Teflon Geoff. But he has apparently not grasped that the fundamental requirement of his job is to run the MoD and take responsibility for it. Not even his fiercest critics charge that he should know of everything that happens in a huge department employing thousands of civil servants, and which has responsibility for some 200,000 troops stationed in the UK and around the world.

But for an entire team of ministers to be unaware of Britain’s potential involvement in a scandal that undermines the moral case for war beggars belief. That Hoon still refuses to accept this as a failing - while his ministers indulge themselves in arguments about what constitutes a report and deflect criticism on to the Daily Mirror - exemplifies the worrying condition of the MoD under his leadership. Now that the Labour leadership is torn by crisis Hoon will probably cling on until his boss goes, if only because Blair now has the small matter of his personal future to consider before he worries about the fortunes of a hapless but loyal defence minister.

But it is deeply ironic that the only resignations resulting from two of the biggest scandals to engulf the MoD in recent memory have been in the media. First the Hutton Report did for BBC director-general Greg Dyke, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and reporter Andrew Gilligan, and now Mirror editor Piers Morgan has gone too. But let’s remember that the WMD dossier was sexed up and the threat grossly exaggerated. Let’s remember that while the pictures were fake and it was right that Morgan was fired, the reports of abuse by British soldiers were very real indeed and might not have exploded in such a dramatic fashion were it not for the Mirror story.

And let’s remember who is ultimately responsible for everything that goes wrong in the MoD. As Tony Blair gets ready for a sharp exit from Number 10, Geoff Hoon might be the only Cabinet minister left praying his master sees off his critics - and the only one not being placed in the fantasy cabinets of the leadership contenders.