I remember having a discussion with a 3* officer about the seeming lack of any senior officers in any of the armed forces being willing to speak out publicly in situations like this. His reply was that were he or any colleagues willing to do this, then they would almost certainly be sacked or asked to resign, loss of pension and utter vilification by the MoD/Whitehall
PR machine. You might make a splash for about 24hrs but you would very quickly be forgotten and utterly humiliated.
You can blame the senior staffs, but you should be looking at the utterly shameless senior civil servants and their political masters.