Why British government conceals true casualty figures in Afghanistan, Iraq?

British soldiers wounded in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not eligible to timely help as the British government is reluctant to disclose the actual casualty figures in the two wars, recent media reports in Britain note.

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Where are all the dead Taliban?

British troops in Afghanistan are brave, says robert fox, but the body count doesn’t add up
Troops in line for VCs," the Daily Telegraph trumpeted this week, claiming there had been recommendations for 180 gallantry awards for soldiers in Afghanistan, including six Victoria Crosses.

The news was given by "a senior Whitehall source" who explained just how tough the fighting had been and that the British were now winning against the Taliban.

Official spin of this kind frequently appears during controversial military campaigns. The line about six VCs for Helmand - "to be rushed through for Christmas," as the Telegraph added breathlessly - has an echo of the Lancashire Fusiliers' "Six VCs before Breakfast" for their assault on W Beach at Gallipoli on April 24, 1915.

The trouble is that, while there undoubtedly have been great acts of bravery in Afghanistan, the figures just don't add up

In the past two months 'official sources' have claimed that an aggregate of several thousand 'Taliban' have been killed by British, Canadian, Danish and special forces. The Nato commander, General Jim Jones, said last week: "It wouldn't surprise me if 1,500 had been killed" by Canadian forces in Kandahar this month alone.

The numbers game - giving increasingly implausible counts of enemy dead - was one of the main factors that undermined the credibility of US forces in Vietnam.

If hundreds of Taliban really have been killed in one attack or another, it raises two questions: Who are they? And what on earth was the Blair government doing sending a force with initially only 650 combat troops against 'thousands' of Taliban fighters?

Only a few of the Taliban appear to be diehard followers of Mullah Omar Mohammed, who founded the movement in Afghanistan a dozen years ago. "I am afraid we have killed an awful lot of local villagers," a special forces commander said this week.

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 29, 2006

All chaotic on the Afghan front

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