Posts Tagged “Des Browne”

I saw the Independent’s report “The cruellest sacrifice: Revealed: 88 casualties of MoD’s failures” and was gobsmacked at this excerpt :
“In his case the MoD maintained it could not be said who shot him as Canadian hunting rifles also use that calibre.”

to “address the growing sense of disillusionment among service personnel and veterans about their treatment by the state”.
More Information here on BBC News Website, including coverage of previous BAFF campaign :
“But an organisation set up last year to represent the interests of British troops, the British Armed Forces Federation (BAFF), following concern about equipment shortages, said the Covenant had to mean something in practice.”

picture from over a year ago.

Seemingly good noises coming from the Government about those Iraqis who risk their lives to help British Forces.

From Chicken Yogurt :

In the autumn‘? ‘Appropriate pace’? This isn’t good enough. These people are dying right now. And not by a nice swift, lights-out bullet to the back of the head. They’re being power drilled in the hands and legs and head so their mutilated bodies can serve as warning to others. Those 91 interpreters could be dead ‘in the autumn.

More at Chicken Yogurt - Go read.

Johnathan Miller of Channel 4 News initially broke the story months ago.

Channel 4 News has posted its story with updates and video here - Go Read.

I gave Channel 4 News use of my ‘Hung Out To Dry’ graphic for its blog - My own post containing it will have dropped off my front page so, if you haven’t seen it, you can see it in the Channel 4 Newsroom blog here.

Finally, a declaration of interest.
I am British. My parents are Scottish as were theirs and theirs before them and theirs etc. etc.
However, I was born in Iraq. My father was an engineer and the family was out in Kirkuk when I was born.
Apparently an old Iraqi lady took care of me and my parents looked on lovingly as she cooed sweet Arabic words to me as I lay in my cot. They found out later that she was taking the piss. She was sweetly whispering to me that I was the Iraqi equivalent of an Effing C.

It is the ideal time to mention the land of my birth as Iraq recently won a football tournament, something Scotland hasn’t done since…erm…..I’ll get back to you on that.

Story on BBC

Last week’s Channel 4 News Image.