Why won't the US tell us how Matty died?
Trooper Hull died in a hail of 'friendly fire' from our American allies in Iraq in 2003. Last week an inquest echoed to the fury of a coroner and the grief of a widow, but failed to answer why such a terrible accident happened. Here we reveal how ministers have battled for years to force the US to uncover the truth of this tragedy
Mark Townsend
Sunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
Maybe she was naive to expect the truth. Four years after being killed by an American pilot, Mandy Hull has still to discover why her son was shot by US forces one morning in Iraq. As she left Oxford coroners court shortly before midday last Friday, she wept briefly. Her sense of betrayal had never felt keener.
The British government had, she suspected, misled her. The Pentagon had point-blank refused to even identify the American servicemen who shot her 25-year-old son. Her only son. 'It makes you sick,' she said.
The inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matthew 'Matty' Hull is more than the tale of a man killed by people who were supposed to be on the same side. His death at the hands of American pilots who ignored British army pleas to stop shooting has led to strained relations between both sets of soldiers and frayed diplomatic ties amid fresh fears of an increasingly lopsided relationship between Britain and its closest ally in the 'war on terror'.
The refusal of American authorities to discipline US servicemen who have killed British troops bolsters a perception among UK soldiers that the Pentagon has little regard for the sacrifices made by the British army in its support of the US-led coalition. But the inquest into Hull's death has also raised questions over the Ministry of Defence's attempts to ensure that soldiers' families are told how and why their sons died. Particularly damaging are claims that MoD officials ignored calls to install a system that could have saved Hull's life and that, despite the frequency of 'friendly-fire' incidents, also known as 'blue on blue', the government still has no central database of the killings.
Most serious, though, are suggestions that the British government misled Hull's wife and family amid claims that it kept secret knowledge of vital evidence into the failures of the US pilots who mistakenly fired upon Hull's convoy. >>>cont
LinkHere
Mark Townsend
Sunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
Maybe she was naive to expect the truth. Four years after being killed by an American pilot, Mandy Hull has still to discover why her son was shot by US forces one morning in Iraq. As she left Oxford coroners court shortly before midday last Friday, she wept briefly. Her sense of betrayal had never felt keener.
The British government had, she suspected, misled her. The Pentagon had point-blank refused to even identify the American servicemen who shot her 25-year-old son. Her only son. 'It makes you sick,' she said.
The inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matthew 'Matty' Hull is more than the tale of a man killed by people who were supposed to be on the same side. His death at the hands of American pilots who ignored British army pleas to stop shooting has led to strained relations between both sets of soldiers and frayed diplomatic ties amid fresh fears of an increasingly lopsided relationship between Britain and its closest ally in the 'war on terror'.
The refusal of American authorities to discipline US servicemen who have killed British troops bolsters a perception among UK soldiers that the Pentagon has little regard for the sacrifices made by the British army in its support of the US-led coalition. But the inquest into Hull's death has also raised questions over the Ministry of Defence's attempts to ensure that soldiers' families are told how and why their sons died. Particularly damaging are claims that MoD officials ignored calls to install a system that could have saved Hull's life and that, despite the frequency of 'friendly-fire' incidents, also known as 'blue on blue', the government still has no central database of the killings.
Most serious, though, are suggestions that the British government misled Hull's wife and family amid claims that it kept secret knowledge of vital evidence into the failures of the US pilots who mistakenly fired upon Hull's convoy. >>>cont
LinkHere
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:14 AM
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