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Report: Bosnia Mission is
Overstretching British Army
The committee said that in 1995-6, 12 of the 19 Army units deployed on operational tours of duty were sent within 24 months of their previous tour. The Army has a target of two years between tours to give soldiers time for training, exercises and family life.
"The Bosnia commitment for the army...has increased in the past year. The consequences of repeated failures to meet the tour interval target are likely to be loss of morale, poor retention (of serving soldiers) and loss of skills as training suffers," the report said.
Some 10,500 British troops, more than a tenth of the strength of its army, are currently in Bosnia as part of the
NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR). The army also has heavy commitments in Northern Ireland. IFOR is due to complete its duties in December but it is still unclear what, if any, international force will replace it. The report said the repeated breaches of the 24-month tour interval "mean that either Bosnia is too big a commitment for the army or that the army is not big enough for the tasks it is being given." |
LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - The British commitment to an international peacekeeping force in Bosnia is overstretching its army and forcing soldiers to undertake operational tours too frequently, parliament's Defence Committee said on Wednesday. In a report on the annual estimates of defence spending submitted to Parliament by the government, it warned that unless the problem could be solved, both morale and skills among soldiers would suffer.
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