Enemy is in Canberra, say Diggers

Michael McKinnon and Cameron Stewart
February 13, 2006
BLOOD-filled boots and sodden jackets infested with maggots force thousands of Australian soldiers a year to buy their own military equipment.

Some soldiers with combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq say an enemy exists in the Defence Department's Russell Office in Canberra -- the bureaucrats who buy the flawed and faulty equipment.

Military equipment supplier Crossfire, based at Braidwood, near Canberra, meets some of the demand from soldiers who say they are "disgusted and demoralised" by poor equipment issued by the Defence Department.

Speaking from a military show in Las Vegas, Crossfire manager Peter Marshall said his company was a big contractor to the Defence Department, with "substantial sales directly to units and to individual soldiers".

"I have spoken to thousands of soldiers who all say they cannot operate at full efficiency because of poor equipment. This failure places their lives at risk," he said.

"There are major problems with retention, and I know soldiers who have reluctantly left the army because they are fed up with a system that doesn't value them as soldiers.

"A soldier's kit -- the backpack, boots, helmets and other equipment -- is their workplace."

Mr Marshall said the problem was not with the whole department but with its combat clothing office, which had failed to seek private-sector advice, produced flawed designs and run inappropriate tendering processes.

A senior army officer, with experience in the area, called yesterday for the combat clothing office to be scrapped.

The officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said some soldiers believed bureaucrats were as much an enemy as insurgents in Iraq.

"The Defence Department's combat clothing area designs equipment in-house. We don't do that with fighter planes -- instead we check and compare the best private industry has to offer," the officer said.

"Soldiers get the equipment, put it in the cupboard and buy their own.

"We cannot believe the generals and the Defence Minister would allow this to continue if they really knew the truth."

Link Here