Dead soldier's mom slams Blair
2004-06-29 20:31
London - The mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq said on Tuesday that her son was treated as just "a bit of meat" to be sacrificed in the government's interests.
Rose Gentle, 40, said her 19-year-old son Gordon, a soldier with the First Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers who died in Basra on Monday, had not been adequately trained to go to war in Iraq.
"Why don't (Prime Minister) Tony Blair and (Defence Secretary) Geoff Hoon send their own families out to Iraq?" she asked.
"My son was just a bit of meat to them, just a number. They don't care about him - all they're worried about is the next election.
"This is not our war, my son has died in their war ... and they haven't even taken up the trouble of picking up the phone and say they're sorry for our loss."
Fusilier Gentle, from Glasgow, Scotland, was killed in a bomb attack on British military vehicles during a routine patrol in Basra on Monday morning.
He is also survived by his father George, 45, and sisters Pamela, 21, and Maxine, 14.
- AP