Post by Moses on Jan 23, 2006 14:46:12 GMT -5
Soldiers to sue MoD for lives blighted by Iraq
The decision by ministers to publish figures on servicemen injured in Iraq is a gesture too late for many. Now The Observer can reveal 15 soldiers are to take action against the government. Mark Townsend reports
Sunday January 22, 2006
The Observer
He remembers a burning sensation, then a numbness creeping down his legs. Less clear are the memories of life draining away as he lay upon the baking Iraqi sand, his blood draining out of his body. Somehow, Albert Thomson would cheat death. But the legacy of that late afternoon near Basra remains with every step he takes; the 37-year-old lost his left leg two inches above his knee after being accidentally shot by a colleague.
Today, Thomson concentrates on re-surrecting a future from his family home amid the flatlands near Spalding, Lincolnshire. He feels, like many of the other new veterans of the Iraq conflict, a forgotten casualty, an untold story of Britain's involvement in Iraq.
Yet that could soon change. For the first time the government, stung by allegations it has deliberately blurred the conflict's true suffering by refusing to reveal how many men and women have been wounded in Iraq, has accepted it must imitate the Bush administration's candid approach to the inevitable sacrifice of its soldiers. Every week, the Pentagon updates its list of wounded troops; any attempt to suppress such figures would be seen as too damaging for a nation still scarred by the psychological afterburn of the Vietnam War.
Britain now plans to follow suit. Unthinkable just a week ago, the defence secretary John Reid last Friday conceded Britain had sustained 'thousands of casualties'. The first confirmation that the complexities of the Iraq conflict has exerted an adverse psychological impact on a vast pool of British servicemen and women has started to emerge. Initial evidence suggests a problem on a scale far greater than the first Gulf conflict. More damaging though is news that 15 British soldiers who recently served in Iraq are to sue the government over claims it failed to help them cope with the psychological trauma of the conflict. The Observer has learnt the servicemen, who include senior officers, will launch legal action against the Ministry of Defence over allegations of 'medical negiglence.' They are the first cases of litigation brought by troops involved in the current conflict and will reignite concerns over its duty of care. Mark McGhee of Manchester-based Linda Myers Solicitors said the cases involved men who had told the Army they were suffering serious psychological trauma following service in Iraq, but did not receive the appropriate help. The widow of one recruit who committed suicide in the family home after returning from Iraq is also planning legal action.
Elsewhere, the first major study to quantify the psychological impact of the conflict is expected to reveal that thousands have been left traumatised by their Iraq experiences. Heightening the sense of a Vietnam-style scenario is the MoD's muddled attempt to provide an accurate picture of the conflict's human cost.
The MoD remains at a loss to explain why, almost three years after the conflict began, it has yet to quantify the precise suffering of the 4,017 men and women so sick or injured they had to be evacuated by air to Britain for medical treatment. Even now, the MoD cannot tell how many of these experienced some form of psychological breakdown. Nor too can the government say how many service personnel, like Thomson, have been injured by friendly fire.
Mystery also surrounds the numbers injured in roadside bombings or those that have suffered horrific burns or been wounded in the catalogue of accidents characteristic of all wars. Yet without fanfare, Britain's casualties keep on arriving; an average of four men and women a day since war began. Families who feel ignored point out that the Prime Minister has yet to visit a single injured soldier in a British hospital.
It is left to the imagination to piece together the emotional fallout behind each statistic; the stalled career, the broken marriage, the slide into depression. There are some we know about. The wife and four children left fatherless when a soldier committed suicide following service in Iraq, the Fijian fusilier rebuilding the shin shattered by a roadside bomb, the Thomson family whose future was defined by the moment 11 bullets sank into Albert's legs and hand. Almost three years on, the man who shot Thomson has yet to make contact, let alone apologise.
Even the MoD have never officially said sorry to a once-active man who now finds the simplest task a trial. Thomson spent almost 100 days lying in a hospital bed waiting for some form of official recognition or message of condolence. 'There wasn't any real support I felt like a hindrance to them,' he said. 'They [the army] talk about one great big family, but apart from the odd visit from the family liaison officer no one came to see us. No one expressed regret that I was injured or said, "Well done, you did a great job out there".'
As John Reid strolled into the military rehabilitation centre at Headley Court last Friday, he caught sight of a figure sprawled on a bench. The defence secretary's gaze fell upon the soldier's pale right leg and fixed upon a smooth stump four inches below the knee.
Raymond Hurst was 18 when a rocket-propelled-grenade struck his 'snatch wagon' near Basra days before the first Christmas of the Iraq conflict. Hauled by friends from the mangled truck, Hurst had tried to stand. His legs buckled. It would be the last time Hurst would ever walk with his own feet.
Yet last week his fresh-faced features beamed at the politician responsible for the Armed Forces. 'You've gotta keep your grin above your chin,' smiled the 20-year-old. Reid and Hurst hail from Glasgow and, for a moment, the two seemed like father and son as they traded banter over the outcome of their city's next Old Firm football match. Reid, the Celtic-supporting Whitehall bruiser, was marking the first time a cabinet minister had met those seriously injured in Iraq. He was genuinely touched by the ebullient Rangers fan lying before him. 'Thanks a million, thanks for all you've done,' said Reid. Hurst nodded warmly.
For Lee Skelton, the clinical director of Combat Stress, the charity formed by the wives of shellshocked war veterans in 1919, it is the 8,000 Territorial Army recruits who have served in Iraq who feel the lack of acknowledgement most acutely. Historically, cases of post-traumatic stress disorder take around 12 years to surface. Already 60 servicemen and women from the current conflict are receiving help. Using the proportion of those diagnosed with subsequent traumas from the first Gulf War, around 2,500 men and women from the ongoing campaign will suffer problems. 'It doesn't look good from here,' said Skelton.
Half of those who have requested help are reservists who are not obliged to accept army counselling. 'The regular soldier goes back to the support of his barracks and mates, the TA recruit goes back to the council estate with his wife and kids and a civvy job,' added Skelton.
Last week Reid, standing in the gym of Surrey's Headley Court, talked proudly of a 'first-class army' that deserved its 'first-class medical facilities'. Mental health experts point to the reservists who finally seek help from the NHS but are told to wait up to a year. Professor Simon Wesseley, director of the Kings Centre for military health research and now finalising his pioneering study into the army's psychiatric state, is already convinced that 'illness is certainly happening in Iraq'. What is less certain is how many serious injuries and illnesses are affecting thousands of British men and women in Iraq.
A year ago, a parliamentary answer put the number of British servicemen and women wounded in Iraq at 794. Last Wednesday afternoon, The Observer was sent figures by the MoD claiming that 177 British men and women had been wounded as a result of hostile action in Iraq. Shortly after midday last Friday this had changed again when Reid announced that in fact this figure was 230, including 40 very seriously injured. At least 11 are known to have lost limbs. The previous figure of almost 800 was suddenly 'withdrawn' and would 'never be used again'. Sources from the MoD struggled to explain the sudden discrepancy, saying only that previous figures were invalid. But the new data raised their own questions, omitting as it did, the fact that 3,800 UK personnel had been hospitalised after being airlifted from Iraq without any detailed explanation of their condition. As Reid said: 'It depends upon the definition of casualty.'
By the time Thomson had reached the nearest medical tent, a saline solution was practically all that pumped through his arteries. Thomson had lost so much blood, there was barely enough to drip from his gaping wounds. Thomson eventually returned to the army, but frustrated by his limited options left last October to set up 'Amputee Casualty Simulation' which teaches people how to respond to potential amputees. The MoD maintains it has a similarly dedicated programme of looking after all Iraq veterans and rejects accusations it has failed its duty of care. Thomson shudders to think how he would have coped without the support from his wife Michelle and Luke, their son who was just 18 months when his dad nearly died. Now all the MoD can do is wait for the lawsuits to be filed and for the story of Iraq to start, once again, to ascend the political agenda.
The changing numbers
18 November 2003 Armed forces minister Adam Ingram says 145 Britons wounded in action.
27 January 2005 Defence minister Ivor Caplin says 794 UK troops have been medically evacuated.
26 December 2005 Ministry of Defence figures suggest number of troops evacuated is 4,000.
18 January 2006 Email from MoD to The Observer suggests that 177 service personnel were wounded.
20 January 2006 John Reid announces that 230 British personnel have been injured. MoD 'withdraws' all earlier statistics.
The decision by ministers to publish figures on servicemen injured in Iraq is a gesture too late for many. Now The Observer can reveal 15 soldiers are to take action against the government. Mark Townsend reports
Sunday January 22, 2006
The Observer
He remembers a burning sensation, then a numbness creeping down his legs. Less clear are the memories of life draining away as he lay upon the baking Iraqi sand, his blood draining out of his body. Somehow, Albert Thomson would cheat death. But the legacy of that late afternoon near Basra remains with every step he takes; the 37-year-old lost his left leg two inches above his knee after being accidentally shot by a colleague.
Today, Thomson concentrates on re-surrecting a future from his family home amid the flatlands near Spalding, Lincolnshire. He feels, like many of the other new veterans of the Iraq conflict, a forgotten casualty, an untold story of Britain's involvement in Iraq.
Yet that could soon change. For the first time the government, stung by allegations it has deliberately blurred the conflict's true suffering by refusing to reveal how many men and women have been wounded in Iraq, has accepted it must imitate the Bush administration's candid approach to the inevitable sacrifice of its soldiers. Every week, the Pentagon updates its list of wounded troops; any attempt to suppress such figures would be seen as too damaging for a nation still scarred by the psychological afterburn of the Vietnam War.
Britain now plans to follow suit. Unthinkable just a week ago, the defence secretary John Reid last Friday conceded Britain had sustained 'thousands of casualties'. The first confirmation that the complexities of the Iraq conflict has exerted an adverse psychological impact on a vast pool of British servicemen and women has started to emerge. Initial evidence suggests a problem on a scale far greater than the first Gulf conflict. More damaging though is news that 15 British soldiers who recently served in Iraq are to sue the government over claims it failed to help them cope with the psychological trauma of the conflict. The Observer has learnt the servicemen, who include senior officers, will launch legal action against the Ministry of Defence over allegations of 'medical negiglence.' They are the first cases of litigation brought by troops involved in the current conflict and will reignite concerns over its duty of care. Mark McGhee of Manchester-based Linda Myers Solicitors said the cases involved men who had told the Army they were suffering serious psychological trauma following service in Iraq, but did not receive the appropriate help. The widow of one recruit who committed suicide in the family home after returning from Iraq is also planning legal action.
Elsewhere, the first major study to quantify the psychological impact of the conflict is expected to reveal that thousands have been left traumatised by their Iraq experiences. Heightening the sense of a Vietnam-style scenario is the MoD's muddled attempt to provide an accurate picture of the conflict's human cost.
The MoD remains at a loss to explain why, almost three years after the conflict began, it has yet to quantify the precise suffering of the 4,017 men and women so sick or injured they had to be evacuated by air to Britain for medical treatment. Even now, the MoD cannot tell how many of these experienced some form of psychological breakdown. Nor too can the government say how many service personnel, like Thomson, have been injured by friendly fire.
Mystery also surrounds the numbers injured in roadside bombings or those that have suffered horrific burns or been wounded in the catalogue of accidents characteristic of all wars. Yet without fanfare, Britain's casualties keep on arriving; an average of four men and women a day since war began. Families who feel ignored point out that the Prime Minister has yet to visit a single injured soldier in a British hospital.
It is left to the imagination to piece together the emotional fallout behind each statistic; the stalled career, the broken marriage, the slide into depression. There are some we know about. The wife and four children left fatherless when a soldier committed suicide following service in Iraq, the Fijian fusilier rebuilding the shin shattered by a roadside bomb, the Thomson family whose future was defined by the moment 11 bullets sank into Albert's legs and hand. Almost three years on, the man who shot Thomson has yet to make contact, let alone apologise.
Even the MoD have never officially said sorry to a once-active man who now finds the simplest task a trial. Thomson spent almost 100 days lying in a hospital bed waiting for some form of official recognition or message of condolence. 'There wasn't any real support I felt like a hindrance to them,' he said. 'They [the army] talk about one great big family, but apart from the odd visit from the family liaison officer no one came to see us. No one expressed regret that I was injured or said, "Well done, you did a great job out there".'
As John Reid strolled into the military rehabilitation centre at Headley Court last Friday, he caught sight of a figure sprawled on a bench. The defence secretary's gaze fell upon the soldier's pale right leg and fixed upon a smooth stump four inches below the knee.
Raymond Hurst was 18 when a rocket-propelled-grenade struck his 'snatch wagon' near Basra days before the first Christmas of the Iraq conflict. Hauled by friends from the mangled truck, Hurst had tried to stand. His legs buckled. It would be the last time Hurst would ever walk with his own feet.
Yet last week his fresh-faced features beamed at the politician responsible for the Armed Forces. 'You've gotta keep your grin above your chin,' smiled the 20-year-old. Reid and Hurst hail from Glasgow and, for a moment, the two seemed like father and son as they traded banter over the outcome of their city's next Old Firm football match. Reid, the Celtic-supporting Whitehall bruiser, was marking the first time a cabinet minister had met those seriously injured in Iraq. He was genuinely touched by the ebullient Rangers fan lying before him. 'Thanks a million, thanks for all you've done,' said Reid. Hurst nodded warmly.
For Lee Skelton, the clinical director of Combat Stress, the charity formed by the wives of shellshocked war veterans in 1919, it is the 8,000 Territorial Army recruits who have served in Iraq who feel the lack of acknowledgement most acutely. Historically, cases of post-traumatic stress disorder take around 12 years to surface. Already 60 servicemen and women from the current conflict are receiving help. Using the proportion of those diagnosed with subsequent traumas from the first Gulf War, around 2,500 men and women from the ongoing campaign will suffer problems. 'It doesn't look good from here,' said Skelton.
Half of those who have requested help are reservists who are not obliged to accept army counselling. 'The regular soldier goes back to the support of his barracks and mates, the TA recruit goes back to the council estate with his wife and kids and a civvy job,' added Skelton.
Last week Reid, standing in the gym of Surrey's Headley Court, talked proudly of a 'first-class army' that deserved its 'first-class medical facilities'. Mental health experts point to the reservists who finally seek help from the NHS but are told to wait up to a year. Professor Simon Wesseley, director of the Kings Centre for military health research and now finalising his pioneering study into the army's psychiatric state, is already convinced that 'illness is certainly happening in Iraq'. What is less certain is how many serious injuries and illnesses are affecting thousands of British men and women in Iraq.
A year ago, a parliamentary answer put the number of British servicemen and women wounded in Iraq at 794. Last Wednesday afternoon, The Observer was sent figures by the MoD claiming that 177 British men and women had been wounded as a result of hostile action in Iraq. Shortly after midday last Friday this had changed again when Reid announced that in fact this figure was 230, including 40 very seriously injured. At least 11 are known to have lost limbs. The previous figure of almost 800 was suddenly 'withdrawn' and would 'never be used again'. Sources from the MoD struggled to explain the sudden discrepancy, saying only that previous figures were invalid. But the new data raised their own questions, omitting as it did, the fact that 3,800 UK personnel had been hospitalised after being airlifted from Iraq without any detailed explanation of their condition. As Reid said: 'It depends upon the definition of casualty.'
By the time Thomson had reached the nearest medical tent, a saline solution was practically all that pumped through his arteries. Thomson had lost so much blood, there was barely enough to drip from his gaping wounds. Thomson eventually returned to the army, but frustrated by his limited options left last October to set up 'Amputee Casualty Simulation' which teaches people how to respond to potential amputees. The MoD maintains it has a similarly dedicated programme of looking after all Iraq veterans and rejects accusations it has failed its duty of care. Thomson shudders to think how he would have coped without the support from his wife Michelle and Luke, their son who was just 18 months when his dad nearly died. Now all the MoD can do is wait for the lawsuits to be filed and for the story of Iraq to start, once again, to ascend the political agenda.
The changing numbers
18 November 2003 Armed forces minister Adam Ingram says 145 Britons wounded in action.
27 January 2005 Defence minister Ivor Caplin says 794 UK troops have been medically evacuated.
26 December 2005 Ministry of Defence figures suggest number of troops evacuated is 4,000.
18 January 2006 Email from MoD to The Observer suggests that 177 service personnel were wounded.
20 January 2006 John Reid announces that 230 British personnel have been injured. MoD 'withdraws' all earlier statistics.