British death rate in Iraq higher than US
Pastor Dale Morgan
British death rate in Iraq higher than US*
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:40am BST 15/07/2007
British troops serving in Iraq are being killed at a proportionally
greater rate than their American allies for the first time since the
start of the war.
British death rate in Iraq higher than US
The death rate of British troops has now surpassed that of Americans,
following a sustained upsurge of violence in the southern city of Basra
The stark finding marks a "watershed" for British involvement in the
conflict, it is claimed, and has led to calls for the Government to set
an immediate timetable for withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Prof Sheila Bird, the vice-president of the Royal Statistical Society,
analysed British and American fatalities from May 2006 to June 2007, and
found that the death rate of British troops has now surpassed that of
Americans, following a sustained upsurge of violence in the southern
city of Basra.
Britain has 5,500 troops serving in Iraq, and suffered 23 fatalities
between February 5 and June 24. The US has 165,000, and lost 463 over
the same period.
One of the Army's most senior commanders told The Sunday Telegraph that
the war in Iraq was now regarded by political and military chiefs within
the Ministry of Defence as "a lost cause".
The officer added that Britain and America had to accept they were
facing the possibility of "strategic failure" in Iraq.
It is now widely accepted in the higher echelons of the military that
the Prime Minister will ask Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the
Chief of the Defence Staff, to start withdrawing British troops by
spring 2008.
Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP and a former infantry commander, said:
"These death rate figures mark a watershed in the misfortunes of our
gallant men in Iraq. These findings will exert further pressure on the
political process to decide just how quickly are troops are withdrawn."
Theresa Thompson, whose 21-year-old son Kevin was killed in May, said:
"The time has come for our troops to come home. There is nothing to be
gained from any more of our young men dying in a pointless war."
Last night, the Iraq Commission, a body set up by the Foreign Policy
Centre, a think tank, under the former Liberal Democrat leader Lord
Ashdown, called for Britain's military objectives to be "refocused" to
provide a "clear exit strategy".
The commission said Britain should cease "offensive military operations"
in Iraq and concentrate on training Iraqi security forces. "When this
has been done we can withdraw the troops," it reported.
Prof Bird analysed the three 140-day periods from May 2006 to June 2007,
taking account of the reduction in British troop numbers in Iraq from
7,000 to 5,500. In the first period, 12 British servicemen were killed,
in the second there were 14 deaths, but in the third period, from
February 5 to June 24, the number rose to 23. In the three weeks since
this last period a further six soldiers have been killed. There were 8.8
deaths "per 1,000 personnel-years" for British troops, whereas the US
death rate was 7.3.
She also discovered that the toll from roadside bombs was increasing.
The devices now kill more British and American troops than any other
type of attack.Prof Bird said: "We should be looking carefully at what
is happening to our military because they fight in our name and we
should care about what is happening to them."
The upsurge in violence is being blamed on two rival Shia groups in
Basra that are vying to fill the power vacuum that will be created when
British troops finally leave. They also want the perceived kudos of
being able to say they were the ones who ousted the British.
An MoD spokesman said: "It is too simplistic to try to compare losses
from year to year, or to view losses over a six-month period and try to
extrapolate meaningful conclusions for the future."
The spokesman said that Lieutenant General Graeme Lamb, the deputy
commander of the Iraqi Multi-National Force, was alluding to one of the
factors that would affect casualty rates when he said in a BBC interview
last week that "UK troops are doubling our strike rates against the
militias. We've doubled our arrests and as a result we've also increased
our casualty rate."