Cannot delete issues / projects when attachments disabled

When indexing is disabled (ie. the attachments path is wrong / not set), then one cannot delete JIRA projects. The error indicates that JIRA tries to delete the attachment directory, and dies if it isn't present:

ERROR [jira.action.issue.IssueDelete] Error deleting issue 10000: java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.io.File.<init>(File.java:180)
at com.atlassian.jira.util.AttachmentUtils.getAttachmentDirectory(AttachmentUtils.java:30)
at com.atlassian.jira.issue.managers.DefaultAttachmentManager.deleteAttachmentDirectory(DefaultAttachmentManager.java:119)
at com.atlassian.jira.action.issue.IssueDelete.doExecute(IssueDelete.java:108)
at webwork.action.ActionSupport.execute(ActionSupport.java:153)
at com.atlassian.jira.action.JiraActionSupport.execute(JiraActionSupport.java:46)
2005-07-07 15:19:39,264 ERROR [jira.action.project.ProjectDelete] Exception removing issues
com.atlassian.core.AtlassianCoreException: Error in action: com.atlassian.jira.action.issue.IssueDelete@a765c, result: null
at com.atlassian.core.action.ActionUtils.checkForErrors(ActionUtils.java:49)
at com.atlassian.jira.action.project.ProjectDelete.doExecute(ProjectDelete.java:66)
at webwork.action.ActionSupport.execute(ActionSupport.java:153)
at com.atlassian.jira.action.JiraActionSupport.execute(JiraActionSupport.java:46)
at com.atlassian.jira.action.JiraNonWebActionSupport.execute(JiraNonWebActionSupport.java:27)
at webwork.dispatcher.GenericDispatcher.executeAction(GenericDispatcher.java:131)
at com.atlassian.core.action.DefaultActionDispatcher.execute(DefaultActionDispatcher.java:34)