Ministry of Dozing

Does no-one in the MOD read anything? Adam Ingram's been in the media lately for failing to see a report on torture in Iraq. Once might be considered careless. But twice?

This week he was asked the following question:

"Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on reports that the US Army has been firing on ambulances in Falluja. [171251]

"Mr. Ingram: We are not aware of any incidents of Coalition Forces firing on ambulances."
(Hansard, 11 May 2004 : Column 213W

But as long as three weeks ago, Jo Wilding reported in Open Democracy that:

"We load the ambulance with disinfectant, needles, bandages, food and water and set off, equipped this time with loudspeakers, pull up to a street corner and get out. The hospital is to the right, quite a way off; the marines are to the left. Four of us in blue paper smocks walk out, hands up, calling out that we’re a relief team, trying to deliver supplies to the hospital.

"There’s no response and we walk slowly towards the hospital. We need the ambulance with us because there’s more stuff than we can carry, so we call out that we’re going to bring an ambulance with us, that we’ll walk and the ambulance will follow. The nose of the ambulance edges out into the street, shiny and new, brought in to replace the ones destroyed by sniper fire.

"Shots rip down the street, two bangs and a zipping noise uncomfortably close. The ambulance springs back into the side road like it’s on a piece of elastic and we dart into the yard of the corner house, out through the side gate so we’re back beside the vehicle.

"This time we walk away from the hospital towards the marines, just us and the loudspeaker, no ambulance, to try and talk to them properly. Slowly, slowly, we take steps, shouting that we’re unarmed, that we’re a relief team, that we’re trying to get supplies to the hospital.

"Another two shots dissuade us. I’m furious. From behind the wall I inform them that their actions are in breach of the Geneva Conventions. “How would you feel if it was your sister in that hospital unable to get treated because some man with a gun wouldn’t let the medical supplies through?” David takes me away as I’m about to call down a plague of warts on their trigger fingers."