Vec,
I disagree about Illustrious, or certainly one of the cruisers (sic). I agree entirely with your next post however.
The Armed forces had 3 possibile roles in 1997.
1. A force in being.
2. An intervention force.
3. A token force.
One of the leaders of the Government selected option 2. The other disliked option 1 as well. With a leadership change, if we withdraw from option 2 this leaves Option 1 force with tired and inappropriate kit that would cost money and which would not be used, certainly in the next few years, which leaves us with Option 3.
Remember even the Army COS said it would take 2 years or more to recover from intervention and that would mean leave, barrack refurbishment, kit replacement etc etc.