OK, FOD, will give it a go.
the letter may well have been edited rather roughly, but the reader is presented with a stark contrast between carrier and land based air.
Sharkey's claims:
Launched from a carrier, the Harrier has at least as good firepower as the Tornado and can be on task delivering weapons within 30 minutes of a call for urgent support from ground forces.
Bit of an ask for Afghanistan, since I imagine that the transit from a CVS to the TIC would take a bit longer than 30 minutes...
In stark contrast, the Tornado and other land-based aircraft operating from Italy have a transit time of 1.5 hours to get to the target and require air-to-air refuelling. Further, these land-based aircraft insist on having 24 hours' notice for close air support missions in support of ground forces.
Others can comment from experience (within the constraints of OPSEC, of course), but my understanding from both TGR and Harrier mates (including dark blue in the latter) would lead me to conclude that either the letter has been edited to the point that it is nonsense, or that Cdr Ward wrote nonsense in the first place.
This major delay puts lives at risk; not just in Libya but also in Afghanistan, where the same appalling procedural practices are employed.
Clearly depends upon the accuracy of his previous paragraph, but are the 'same appalling procedural practices' not the ones which were in place when the Harrier force did Herrick, in which case they can't be as bad, since Cdr Ward was claiming elsewhere that Harriers from Kandahar could respond to calls for support in a manner so swift that if one blinked, you'd miss it? Or did the Harriers not operate in an ATO cycle? Or perhaps he means that with the departure of the Harriers, has the TGRF turned up and 'said 'flexibility? Pah! You're not having that'?
