Why does it seem that some in MOD have been keen to portray
Illustrious' conversion to a helicopter carrier as being a major and ireversible act? After all, she didn't have or need catapaults or arrestor gear to operate Sea Harrier/Harrier. More smoke and mirrors?
With respect to Libya, see this
Telegraph article:
The Libyan campaign is running into the sand
But Mr Cameron imagined he could replicate Tony Blair’s achievements in taking on and defeating rogue dictators. So he ignored the advice – and is now discovering the hard way that being a wartime leader can be a very lonely business. He quickly learnt that few Nato leaders shared his enthusiasm for regime change in Tripoli, but arguably his lowest moment came during President Obama’s recent state visit to Britain. Desperate for more air power to put Gaddafi’s forces on the defensive, the Prime Minister virtually begged the president to deploy more drones. Having invested so much political capital in Libya, Mr Cameron pleaded, he badly needed to get a result. Mr Obama, who has been perplexed by his counterpart’s obsession with the country from the start, was unmoved, and refused to allow US forces anything more than a supporting role.
Many would argue that Mr Cameron has got his just desserts for his cavalier treatment of the Armed Forces during last year’s botched Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), which saw a wide range of key capabilities cancelled simply to cut costs, rather than to improve the defence of the realm. The reason the French have been able to fly three times more combat sorties than the RAF is that they can still call on the services of an aircraft carrier, while, thanks to Mr Cameron, HMS Ark Royal and its Harriers have been consigned to the scrapheap – not to mention our Nimrod surveillance aircraft and other essential military enablers.
Oh dear Mr Cameron, perhaps you should consider the idea in my above post?
Meanwhile, you may recall that the First Sea Lord said that supporting the Libyan effort would mean taking ships away from other tasks. Well, it has happened already - with the frigate
Sutherland being
diverted there. In fact the entire deployment of the Response Force Task Group has been disrupted by responding to events.