Fox defends UK defence review as process, not an event
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, Dec 6, IRNA -- Defence Secretary Liam Fox Monday rejected criticism of the UK government’s defence review, saying that it was “a process, not an event.”
“We have taken decisions that will shape our programmes over the next four years,” Fox said. “It will take time but we have started to put the MoD on the right track for 2020 and beyond,” he said.
Last week, the Financial Times said that Britain needs a “properly worked out defence strategy,” defining what it wants the armed forces to do, what kit they need and, by extension, what indigenous technologies are required for strategic reasons.
The defence review in November, it said, “did not adequately answer these questions.” It also called on Fox to identify the programmes that should be cut, which have yet to be decided and to “create a sensible profile for defence spending, which can be properly funded.”
But in a letter to the daily, the defence secretary said the FT “misrepresents the challenges we face, the changes we have brought about in defence and the progress we have already made.”
He agreed that the government had to still deal with 'a £38bn hole in the Ministry of Defence finances and tackle the national deficit left behind by Labour that costs us £120m alone in daily interest payments.”
“The National Security Council set out an adaptive posture for our future security and defence. This framework for the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) set out clear requirements for our future role in the world. To suggest there was no strategic element to the SDSR is nonsense,” Fox said.
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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30111562
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