The recent outsourcing of recruitment to a civilian agency has only exacerbated this problem.

Under his plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services.

But experts fear they could stop civilian agencies asking for military help during the crisis for fear of being sent a bill.

Many of the vehicles were transferred to civilian agencies and some are still in use today in rural areas.

Troops of this division were also deployed to the support of civilian agencies during large natural disasters such as disastrous floods in 1997.