Curiouser
On Monday last week, I wrote about a parliamentary question asked by both Diane Abbott and Adam Price. Defence Minister, Adam Ingram, provided the answer on May 24:
Adam Price: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether British service personnel have been deployed or seconded to (a) Guantanamo Bay, (b) Guam and (c) Diego Garcia since 1995. [241]
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether British service personnel have been (a) deployed and (b) seconded to (i) Guantanamo Bay, (ii) Guam and (iii) Diego Garcia since 1994. [506]
Mr. Ingram: No British service personnel have been deployed operationally or seconded to other nations’ armed forces to serve at Guantanamo Bay or Guam. The armed forces maintain a permanent presence on Diego Garcia, totalling some 40 service personnel.
I wonder how significant the word operationally is in Ingram’s answer. It implies to me that personnel may have been deployed to Guantanamo or Guam just not “operationally”. Observers, perhaps? Maybe somebody could clarify for me.
Posted on May 31st, 2005 at 9:53am under Uncategorized
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• 4 Comments |
Again, theyworkforyou does this better than Hansard:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2005-05-24.241.h
I think you are right: it means they have been there to observe or on other non-operational activity. This is likely to be pre-deployment activity such as training, intelligence gathering, joint exercises, etc.
Usually, any “deployment” is by definition operational. As I’ve pointed out before, RAF aircraft sometimes stage through the place, so presumably British service personnel would have been there, but not deployed there, even if they just walk about on the tarmac.
To expand, I would think that intelligence people sent there as “observers” would certainly be considered to be on operations.