http://downingstreetsays.com/briefings/2004/10/27/996 Every day the Prime Minister's Spokesman meets a small coterie of political journalists known as 'the lobby' for a topical chat, or 'briefing'. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:52:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 http://downingstreetsays.com/briefings/2004/10/27/996#comment-2311 tony Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:16:31 +0000 http://downingstreetsays.com/briefings/2004/10/27/996#comment-2311 Looks like theres going to be more of our troops there then....... and whats with "normalising the situation on the ground " ? Whats 'normal' about your country being bombed on a massive scale, having little in the way of basic facilities, a foreign force occuping, killing and torturing your people, and hearing that forces leaders saying how much better off you are now. As for investing in new technology for defence, the only reason that "Spending on defence had been rising over the past seven years - the largest increase over such a period" is because of the extremely poor way that contracts have been awarded and monitored and the fact that most are hugely over budget (eurofighter, chinooks, and new ships for the navy), hardly something to boast about Looks like theres going to be more of our troops there then…….
and whats with "normalising the situation on the ground " ? Whats ‘normal’ about your country being bombed on a massive scale, having little in the way of basic facilities, a foreign force occuping, killing and torturing your people, and hearing that forces leaders saying how much better off you are now.
As for investing in new technology for defence, the only reason that "Spending on defence had been rising over the past seven years - the largest increase over such a period" is because of the extremely poor way that contracts have been awarded and monitored and the fact that most are hugely over budget (eurofighter, chinooks, and new ships for the navy), hardly something to boast about

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