Sir, - The current climate of tension between senior Army personnel on one side and the Minister for Defence and senior officials of the Department of Defence has focused attention on the proposed content of the White Paper on Defence Policy, particularly among serving and retired members of the Defence Forces.
The issues were highlighted significantly in your Saturday edition by Roisin Ingle, who profiled the Chief of Staff, and speculated on the dilemma he is faced with, and by Kevin Myers, whose acerbic style is well suited to highlight the inadequate performance of the Department in the plans for restructuring and re-equipping the Army.
Whatever about the merits or otherwise of the draft planning, one aspect that creates concern is the sheer arrogance whereby the Department proposes to implement such drastic changes, including a personnel reduction of 1,000, without actively involving senior Army staff in the decision-making process, and apparently without cognisance or concern for the Army's capacity to perform in a multinational dimension overseas or in a potentially compromised security circumstance at home.
I would like to publicly express my support for the General Staff in their challenge to the Minister and Department officials regarding the Minister's blatantly political bias, whereby he tends to dilute the issue of principle by reference to aspects such as the financial implications of the hearing impairment visited on so many members of the Defence Forces - ironic, as that particular crisis developed in a circumstance of patent omission by the Department, when the problem began to be manifest.
The Minister's public pronouncements - notably at the ceremonial in McKee Barracks last week, and on RTE1 on Sunday night - are unconvincing, occasionally arrogant, while his premise that the Chief of Staff and he would not be at variance because they both come from Co Tipperary came across both as fatuous and sycophantic. Perhaps he, and not the Chief of Staff, should be considering his position. - Yours, etc., Terry McNulty,
(Comdt, Ret'd), Glenavy Park, Dublin 6W.