Helping the locals sort out a natural calamity like this is hardly "cleaning the streets" sharpend, particularly when other agencies not to mention locals and private contractors, many unpaid, are at full stretch. I don't follow that whether soldiers are "keen to fight in Afganistan" or not has anything to do with it (that ones over, you may have noticed). They're being paid by the government(unlike many others helping) and most are keen to be doing something with a visible and tangible public benefit.
Fair enough, but if it is all hands to the pumps(excuse the pun) then I would expect the councils etc to grab all available manpower to help, including office workers. Humping and dumping is not a skilled job, what is needed is numbers.
On a slightly different note, someone somewhere knew there was a risk of this happening, gambled and lost.
It may be that with the limited resources available they had made the best calls, but will there ever be a time when bureaucrats are actually properly called to account and disciplinary proceedings taken including and up to court action.
I know if I make a judgement and things go wrong I will be held to account and will have to explain why I chose the actions I did.
It appears some public sector workers are beyond reproach. Meek lines from senior management saying lessons will be learnt, followed by people taking early retirement to avoid disciplinary action are simply not good enough. Perhaps if the senior management were held accountable in the first instance(we need an offence of wasting public money), they would take more interest in those underneath them and quickly weed out the feckless before poor decisions are made?