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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, Mozambique.
As we've just been hearing in the news summary there is now a massive
amount of aid building up at the main airport waiting to be distributed
to the hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need. RAF helicopters
will be helping with that. But they could have done so much more to rescue
people if they'd been there earlier, they arrived only yesterday. The Defence
Secretary, Geoff Hoon, is in our Derby studio.
Mr Hoon, we'll come to that
in a moment if we may. Can you just tell me what the latest is with those
helicopters, what they're doing, whether they're active at the moment?
GEOFF HOON: The latest I've heard is that
two helicopters are now flying missions. One is on a rescue mission to
try and see whether there are any further people requiring saving from
the water, a second actually delivering food aid, and two more are being
prepared, the crews have worked overnight and we hope to have them flying
later today I hope.
HUMPHRYS: But it's being reported
that they can't get to the north of the country which is where if there
are people still stranded they will be.
HOON: Well, we are still investigating
that situation. As you are probably aware we had a ship sailing with five
more helicopters that we hope will be getting to Beira by Thursday and
that may help in that part of Mozambique.
HUMPHRYS: It'll be a bit late by
then won't it?
HOON: Well, I appreciate that,
but we were told originally the ship would take some nine days to get there
from the Gulf. It was a difficult decision as to whether it was the right
thing to send it, we judged it was. Obviously there's some delay but it
really has moved very quickly. It's picked up medical supplies in Muscat
on the way. I think it will provide a valuable assistance on Thursday because
it is packed with food, it's a supply ship, it has as hospital on board,
as I say it's picked up some medical supplies, so I'm sure by Thursday
it will provide some help.
HUMPHRYS: But I thought it had
been judged at the start of last week that it was not worth sending that
ship, that it would cost too much money for the benefit that it would be
able to provide when it eventually got there, so with that announcement
on Friday it began to look a bit like a kind of political judgement rather
than a strategic one didn't it?
HOON: Well, no, it's always a difficult
call. We always knew because it was in the Gulf that it was going to take
up to nine day to get there. It's going to take rather less now, but nevertheless
it's very hard to predict in this kind of emergency what will be the situation,
and as many people have quite rightly commented in this kind of crisis
it is the case that frankly we're often behind the curve. As far as the
ship is concerned this is our opportunity to get ahead of the game because
if the waters do continue to recede, there's some reports now that they
are beginning to recede, frankly we know what kind of problems we will
face. We will face disease, we will face hunger and a supply ship packed
with medicines, packed with food, with a hospital and indeed a surgeon
on board I believe by Thursday will be able to provide some real help.
HUMPHRYS: Which will be greatly
appreciated no doubt, but we don't have a lot to be proud of as far as
our performance in this disaster is concerned do we? I mean had we set
out earlier with the equipment, the helicopters that were needed we could
have saved lives and we didn't do so, because as Clare Short told me last
week, the Ministry of Defence wanted too much money.
HOON: I simply don't accept that.
I think we have a ...
HUMPHRYS: That's what she said.
HOON: Well, I believe we had a
great deal to be proud of. People worked in both departments extraordinarily
long hours, very hard to make sure that we had helicopters in the first
place available, and as I say then the ship. We were first asked on Tuesday
about providing helicopters. A decision was taken early the next day.
By then we had despatched a team of Marines to Mozambique to recce the
landing situation because frankly we had to hire an enormous aircraft,
an Antonov to get the helicopters inside, to get them down there. A lot
of preliminary work had to be done to achieve that.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but a lot of bureaucracy
went on didn't it. I mean Clare Short was absolutely clear, she said that
she asked the MOD to supply helicopters and when they told how much it
was going to cost her department she said it was going to, let me quote
you, I'm sure you'll remember it, the MOD was charging very high prices
and coming in very slow. The MOD asked the full cost of the operation,
and that comes in very, very expensive, and so she went elsewhere. Well,
we're talking about a couple of million pounds here, and it staggered a
lot of people, I think staggers them still that that should have been the
case when people were clinging to the tops of trees and facing death we
couldn't say: right, let's do it, to hell with the cost at the moment.
Let's just go, and then worry about the bureaucracy afterwards.
HOON: Well, can I make it clear,
there wasn't any delay caused by any kind of bureaucracy. What Clare was
talking about quite rightly, and I would have taken precisely the same
decision in her situation. How do we get helicopters there quickly, and
obviously the best way, the best value for money is to hire, charter, lease,
get hold of helicopters in the area. That's what she did, she was quite
right to do that.
HUMPHRYS: She did. Well, sorry,
let me just stop you for a moment because it was for you to do that, it
was for you the MOD to charter that, one of those big Antonov aircraft,
and they came back and said it's going to be too much for us to do that.
I've talked myself to serving RAF people who've said: Look, off the record
sadly, because they're serving RAF people.: We wanted to do it, we could
have done it. We could have got those choppers there within twenty-four
hours if they'd given us the go-ahead, and they didn't because the politicians,
I won't use the language he used - the politicians are arguing among themselves.
HOON: Well that simply wasn't the
case. We had the Antonov. We managed to get the helicopters on board
and they're now there. But it is an enormous exercise and it's an enormously
expensive exercise and I quite understand why Clare judged it right, as
I would have judged it right, to ensure that in the first place that we
got locally available aircraft on the scene quickly, as the crisis unfolded,
as we realised that things were actually still getting worse we then had
to look at how we could get more helicopters there, that meant hiring this
Antonov and that meant disassembling, in part at any rate, the helicopters,
getting them on board and flying them down there. There were two distinct
stages in this and inevitably that second stage, getting aircraft from
the United Kingdom to Mozambique is an enormously expensive and difficult
process.
HUMPHRYS: But when it came down
to it you did ultimately halve the price, instead of the two point two
you charged one point one billion pounds to Clare Short's department.
If you could do it then at that stage a couple of days later why could
you have not done it earlier? Why could you not, as I've said, say 'look
let's not quibble about even a couple of million pounds at this stage,
let's just go and do it.'? You're not answering that question you see
Mr Hoon.
HOON: Well that's precisely what
I actually did, I said, ' look, let's get on with this. Let's get this
sorted out. Let's get them down there.'
HUMPHRYS: But you didn't. Clare
Short said you didn't. She said so on the Today programme on Friday morning.
HOON: No. What actually happened
was that the two departments discussed in particular, for example, whether
a particular amphibious unit should be sent. Clare decided, understandably,
that that wasn't an immediate priority therefore that wasn't required.
In addition, contrary actually to the Treasury rules that govern the way
these things work, I decided that it was necessary to offset the cost of
the operation that these helicopters would otherwise have been engaged
in.
HUMPHRYS: When? When did you decide
that?
HOON: Wednesday. So these things
were done very quickly and frankly cost was never an issue, bureaucracy
was never an issue. We got those people down there as quickly as we possibly
could.
HUMPHRYS: But you were asked on
Tuesday. I mean even if it was twenty four hours delay that was twenty
four hours too long. We knew what was happening. You see it isn't as
if it suddenly happened over that weekend. This had been going on for....
the cyclone struck a month ago, people were in very serious trouble, very
nearly three weeks ago now, they were clinging to the tops of trees last
weekend, I mean that's the point. People died because we didn't get there
quick enough. That's the upshot of it all isn't it?
HOON: I simply don't accept that.
As I say there were two stages in the process: The first stage was to
get helicopters there as quickly as possible. That was done by hiring
local aircraft and then in addition when we saw the full horror of the
situation we judged it was right to get British aircraft from the United
Kingdom down there very quickly.
HUMPHRYS: People saw the full horror
of the situation a lot longer than you did in Whitehall and Westminster
in that case.
HOON: Well I do appreciate that
and, indeed, it's part of the problem that we have to confront these days.
It's possible for you and your colleagues, quite rightly, to get pictures
back from terrible situations like Mozambique.....
HUMPHRYS: Pictures that you were
able to see......
HOON: Which we were able to see
but unfortunately we cannot get helicopters there as quickly as you can
get pictures back again.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah. Well you see that's
where people argue all the time. People say, 'Yes, with the right will
they could have done that, they could have got that plane very, very much
more quickly, they could have put their helicopters on.' There simply
wasn't the will to do it because there was this bureaucratic infighting,
whether it was because Clare Short and your man at the MOD didn't get on,
whether it was because of the cost, whatever it was - it took too long.
The question is now I suppose - what have we learned from it?
HOON: Well I don't accept that
it took too long. The request came on Tuesday evening, a decision was
taken early on Wednesday and frankly we were chartering an aircraft and
doing the work necessary to get the helicopters inside on Thursday. I
do not see how it could have been done any faster.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, well what have
we learned? Have we at least learned now that people, that one minister
shouldn't have to go to another minister and say 'what would it cost me
to do X Y and Z? If people are dying should we not be able to say - there
is money, let's make available if it comes out of a central fund or whatever
the heck it happens to be, can we not just do it in future?'
HOON: Well that's what happens
and I recognise that that's what always ought to happen. I also recognise
that when we have these kinds of crisis' we all want to respond even more
quickly than practicality allows for but I assure you that there was no
delay, no lives were lost as a result of any kind of bureaucratic delay
in the United Kingdom.
HUMPHRYS: Have we learned anything?
HOON: Certainly we always learn
something from these situations. There were problems on Thursday and Friday
bureaucratically and diplomatically and we need to find ways of ensuring
that we can communicate both with a government in South Africa and a government
in Mozambique. There are always lessons to be learned from these situations
and I assure you that we will learn them.
HUMPHRYS: Geoff Hoon, thanks very
much indeed.
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