(British) MOD accused of hiding real cost of Iraq war

[theHandpuppet]

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=147612006

Mon 30 Jan 2006

MOD accused of hiding real cost of Iraq war
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Key quote
"These are not great statistics," he said. "We are fully aware that there may have been hundreds of others with superficial injuries but we don't have those figures." MOD SPOKESMAN

THE Ministry of Defence has admitted that it issued misleading figures for the number of British soldiers injured in Iraq after a Scotsman investigation found that they were wildly inaccurate.

John Reid, the Defence Secretary, last week claimed that about 230 UK personnel had been wounded in action in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. The new figure was substantially smaller than previous estimates and would mean British troops had a ratio of deaths to injuries of roughly 1:3, compared with the US ratio of 1: 7.

The MoD admitted yesterday that hundreds more may have been injured in combat and that it was unlikely that injuries sustained by soldiers during the war itself had been included in the total. It is now reviewing the information and has promised to issue more figures in the next couple of weeks...

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[Greeby]

1. But of course

And the worst part is, my uncle heads up the military end of this sometime this year

(Sir Jock Stirrup, current Chief of the Air Staff, soon to be Chief of the Defence Staff) :puke:

[bothwell]

2. Spin

Beleive me Mr Reid and his boss Teflon Tony will be spinning this like mad, although it;'s hard to imagine how, soldiers are injured or not surely but I have every faith they will reduce the numbers how they see fit until they get the answer they want