Outrage After Senior British Soldiers Are Sacked by E-Mail

LONDON -- The British military has been forced to issue a humiliating apology after dozens of senior soldiers, including one serving on the front lines in Afghanistan, learned they were losing their jobs by e-mail.

The 38 warrant officers -- the highest noncommissioned rank -- were told in the impersonal message that their contracts would be terminated in 12 months' time, as "the army has to make significant cutbacks." The men, who have each served more than 20 years in the military, were advised to "start planning [their] resettlement," The Sun newspaper revealed.

Military protocol states that soldiers should be informed about the future of their contracts through the military's chain of command, with senior officers informing subordinates in face-to-face meetings. The army has apologized for the "distress" caused by the e-mail, saying it was sent out because of a clerical error.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox said he was "furious" about the mistake. "This is no way to treat our armed forces personnel," he said in a statement. "I want to know how this was allowed to happen and what measures will be put in place to prevent this from happening again."

A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron added that the British leader was "very clear that the way this has been handled is completely unacceptable."

The leaked e-mail is yet another knock for the government's defense policy, which has been hit by a steady barrage of criticism over the past four months. Before coming to power in May, Cameron campaigned for military spending to be boosted. But last October his coalition government announced that the defense budget would be slashed by $8 billion over the next four years in an attempt to reduce the country's record budget deficit.

That plan involves sacking some 42,000 military employees by 2015 -- including 25,000 civilian staff at the Ministry of Defence, 7,000 in the Army and 5,000 each at the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force -- and scrapping dozens of ships and planes.

The government has claimed that this isn't simply a cost-saving exercise but an attempt to reposition the military for future challenges. However, critics have noted that the cuts will leave the country without a single functioning aircraft carrier until 2016. (In the meantime, Britain has to share one with France.)

That's not such a problem, though, as the Navy's Harrier jump-jet squadron has also been mothballed, meaning the country won't have any jets capable of landing or taking off from a carrier until the arrival of the new Joint Strike Fighter plane in 2020.

And on Monday, British daily The Telegraph revealed that 100 student pilots will be sacked this week, despite the fact that the military has already spent an estimated $485 million training them and some are just a few flight hours away from becoming fully qualified fighter jet, helicopter and transporter pilots.

"Cutting these pilots is going to weaken our capabilities in anything to do with air operations, which will impact on every other RAF and Army element in Afghanistan," Cmdr. John Muxworthy, chairman of the U.K. National Defence Association, told The Telegraph. "This is a step too far."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the cuts to pilot numbers were necessary, as the country now has fewer aircraft. The spokesman insisted the cuts wouldn't compromise operations in "Afghanistan and priority areas."