email received from Robert Persey March 9 2006Dear Mary
Please place this on your website if you wish.
You have recently placed the Northumberland Report on FMD on your website and you have highlighted the recommendation that the army should be brought in as of day one in a future disease outbreak and we all know that this did not take place in 2001.
Mr Nick Brown M.P. has often had to take the blame for this failure. I would like to quote from a letter that Mr Brown sent to the Prime Minister on Thursday February 22nd. This was before the disease had been identified at Burnside farm.
Mr Brown stated to the Prime Minister
'If the disease spreads substantially, we may need to think in terms of extreme measures such as support by the military. My department has made initial contact with MoD to explore the kind of skills and resource which might be needed and - subject of course to collective decision - available'.
Here we have Nick Brown flagging up the need for the army, instructing his staff to liaise with the army and obviously then over ruled by 'collective decision' i.e. CAMPBELL!!.You can understand why Nick Brown feels aggrieved with the PM as being the politician who had to take the blame..
P.S. Is there any way that we could find out if this letter ever went to the Anderson's Lessons Learned Inquiry?
PPS The copy of the letter that I received from my source, has part of para.4 deleted and also para. 9 has been deleted.
Kind Regards
Robert