L’armée britannique également touchée par les désertions

Autre cadeau de la paire Bush-Blair à l’armée britannique : les désertions. Des chiffres du ministère de la défense montrent que les désertions ont plus que doublé depuis le déclenchement de la guerre en Irak. Cette augmentation des désertions aggrave de façon substantielle le problème général qui est posé au ministère de la défense, au niveau des effectifs alors que nombre de ses sont engagées dans divers conflits.

Il semble que l’augmentation des désertions n’atteint pas le niveau de celles qui affectent l’armée américaine mais elle est néanmoins très substantielle et inquiétante. Certaines indications de source indépendante indiquent que les règles concernant les désertions ont été appliquées avec une rigueur minimale pour réduire les chiffres officiels.

Selon le Times du 13 août :

« New figures released by the Ministry of Defence last week show that 2,030 soldiers went missing from their units between 2003 and 2005 and were later dismissed by the service. A further 740 are on the run but have not yet been kicked out. Over the previous three years there were 1,130 dismissals.

» Military Families Against the War, the organisation set up by parents of soldiers killed in Iraq, said the figures were a clear reflection of disenchantment brought about by the war. Rose Gentle, a spokeswoman for the group, whose son Gordon was killed in Iraq, said: “Half of these boys are little more than kids. They’ve not got the right equipment. They see their friends killed. It’s affected a lot of them mentally. That’s why they’re not going back.”

» Rather than finding the deserters, the army tends simply to write off the missing soldiers and dismiss them in their absence. The new figures show that only 11 have been court-martialled since the war began.

» “There can now be no doubt about the serious impact of the disastrous war and occupation of Iraq,” said Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman. “With demanding commitments in a number of theatres the army is already overstretched. We cannot afford to lose soldiers at such a rate.”

» The number of soldiers dismissed each year for going Awol indefinitely, effectively deserting, averaged 375 in the three years preceding the war. It rose to 495 in 2003 and to 815 in 2004 and was 720 last year. »

Mis en ligne le 13 août 2006 à 20H03