Comments (1)

 "If Iraq was a legal war, if the troop numbers were adequate, if their equipment was up to scratch and they weren't driving around in lousy Land Rovers... maybe it would be more bearable. But it isn't."
Lynda Holmes, Mother of British Soldier

The story that shocked her most, Esther Wilson says, was the mother who bought a pair of boots for her boy serving in Iraq. The ones he had been given were useless, the woman said; they were melting in the heat, her son was getting foot rot. So she bought him a new pair. Only she couldn't afford to post the two together. She had to send one, then wait till the next benefit payment had come through to send the other. "I just thought, this is amazing," Wilson says. "Those young men are out there, being brutalised, fighting, their lives in danger, getting shafted every which way - and we're not even giving them decent boots? How come we've none of us heard about this? How come no one gets to know?"

Thanks to Wilson's new play, Ten Tiny Toes, a few more people will now get to know. Not just about the boots that desperate mothers are sending to their sons - British troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan - but also the T-shirts, the foot cream, the plasters, the soap, the bottled water, the teabags. The kind of things you could be forgiven for thinking a 21st-century army might be able to provide.

Comments (1)

Comments (1)

· Taliban tactics made them tough enemy to defeat
· Tensions with president added to army's problems

When the government dispatched 3,000 British troops to southern Afghanistan in the spring of 2006 to join the limited number who had been there as part of an international security force (Isaf) since 2001, John Reid, then defence secretary, expressed the hope that they would accomplish their mission without a shot being fired.

Just as in Iraq, it was a hope based on bad intelligence and little or no idea of the nature of the enemy.

The troops set up a base in Helmand province without a clear mission and with Britain and its Nato allies at sixes and sevens about their rules of engagement. From the beginning, the relations of British military commanders with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the country's local governors were fraught. British commanders sent soldiers to forward bases where they were vulnerable to Taliban fighters. Local peace deals fell apart.

It was not long before British troops were fighting some of the fiercest battles since the second world war.

Be first to comment this article

"The MoD are going to do absolutely nothing and these planes will still be flying and these boys will risk their lives every day."
Richard Mitchelmore, father of Flt Lt Leigh Mitchelmore

Be first to comment this article

Plan to reduce forces to 2,500 by next month put off indefinitely as Iraqi troops prepare to take on militias.

Further British troop withdrawals from Iraq have been delayed indefinitely amid renewed rocket attacks on British forces in Basra, and a looming showdown between Iraqi government forces and Shia militias.

The Government has already admitted that a timetable set out by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, for the process of disengagement from Iraq has slipped. The remaining force was to have been cut from 4,100 to 2,500 by next month, but this reduction will not now take place. Instead the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, is expected to announce this week that the next rotation of troops, in May, will see roughly the same number arrive as those they are replacing.

Comments (3)