Nearly 3,000 troops are flown back to the UK for treatment

[lovuian]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594552
Nearly 3,000 troops are flown back to the UK for treatment
By Severin Carrell
19 December 2004


Nearly 3,000 British troops have been flown back to the UK for hospital treatment after being wounded, injured or falling sick in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence has disclosed.

The figure - which dwarfs the death toll of 74 troops and aircrew who have died since the invasion in March 2003 - includes hundreds of soldiers evacuated from Iraq with serious injuries or illnesses, some critical.

The MoD has revealed that by last Wednesday, 2,862 personnel had been evacuated back to Britain - mostly because they were too ill or injured to be treated in Iraq. The evacuation rate is currently running at more than 25 soldiers a week, and includes 65 servicemen and women seriously injured in combat over the past four months.

The most critically injured casualties include one sergeant flown back to the UK for neurosurgery after he "took the full force" of a bomb in Basra which claimed the life of Black Watch Private Mark Ferns.

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What a terrible cost of human life!!!

[Nikepallas]

1. About F%*^IN' TIME!!!! To bad the US government can not be bought

up on Neglect charges.

[Yuugal]

2. how much has the UK spent so far on this mess?

are they feeling the deficit pain like we are?

[NNN0LHI]

3. I think we are picking up the tab for them

We are paying for everyone else so I had assumed they were on the US dole too. May not be in a cash payout. Probably more like a sweetheart deal for British Petroleum or some British security firm with all the normal bribes and kick backs usually associated with such a criminal enterprise.

Don