UK army chief warns cuts could hinder ability to fight

Further military spending cuts could seriously hinder Britain's ability to successfully fight wars, the head of the Army warned. General Peter Wall told Sky News Thursday that cuts would seriously compromise the force's "professional competence" in certain fields as spending talks between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Treasury enter a critical phase. "Imposing more on us now before the last round of efficiencies have really materialised properly in a balanced way would be very disruptive," he told the news channel. "We have got to the point in a number of parts of our set-up where we can't go any further without seriously damaging our professional competence and our chances of success on the battlefields of the future," he added. Finance minister George Osborne has called for £11.5?billion of savings from government departments, with the MoD expected to suffer deep cutbacks. The Army is already reeling from the 2010 defence budget, which led to the number of personnel being reduced from 102,000 to 82,000.