Blair blasted over troops

2007-03-11 14:20

London - Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused on Sunday of neglecting his duty to British troops over claims they lacked good equipment while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and received poor care when wounded.

Blair was taken to task by families of dead soldiers, members of parliament, actors, writers, human rights activists and others who signed an open letter published in the Independent on Sunday newspaper.

"We believe that the military covenant is broken, and that you have neglected the young men who carry out your orders in our name," said the letter.

"At a time when the country is asking so much of our overstretched forces, it is failing to play fair by them," said the letter signed by such prominent figures as playwright Harold Pinter and human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger.

"In this, you have prime responsibility, and you should at the very least meet the families of the bereaved to discuss their concerns," said the letter signed by 48 people, including the families of several dead servicemen.

"We shall call on you to reconsider your approach toward our military personnel, to restore the vital covenant, and to deliver to our men and women the just and proper treatment they deserve," the letter said.

The letter said some soldiers killed had died because they did not have the military equipment they needed. And it repeated previously aired complaints of sub-standard accommodation in Britain for soldiers and their families.

With a number of military hospitals in Britain closed, it said, "wounded soldiers evacuated from the battlefield suddenly find themselves on civilian wards and at risk of physical or verbal attack from members of the public."

It added: "We believe the government is failing properly to look after the British widows and the children left behind."

The Observer newspaper reported that it had received a series of letters from soldiers' families painting a "shocking picture of neglect and the appalling treatment of wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."

The complaints were passed on to it from senior military sources who were alarmed at the level of care, said the newspaper.

One letter sent to the ministry of defence and the state-run national health service revealed how one teenage soldier spent a night lying in his faeces after hospital staff allowed his colostomy bag to overflow, the newspaper said.

Jamie Cooper, who at 18 was the youngest British soldier to be wounded in Iraq, also spent an uncomfortable night on a medical air mattress that deflated after medical staff failed to answer his summons for nursing staff, it said.

Cooper's stomach was torn open by mortar shrapnel.

Other letters summarised how soldiers had been deprived of adequate pain relief and emotional support, and in some cases were unable to sleep because of the noise at night in NHS hospitals, the Observer reported

- AFP