UK Army chiefs claim US 'trumpets' body count as tensions between forces rise [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Mail on Sunday

UK Army chiefs claim US 'trumpets' body count as tensions between forces rise
Last updated at 10:07am on 17th January 2008

Simmering tensions between American and British military chiefs spilled into the open today after the US defence secretary attacked Nato's performance in Afghanistan.

Robert Gates said the 30,000 US troops in the country were “doing a terrific job” in confronting the Taliban insurgency but complained that some allies were not properly trained and lacked experience tracking militants.

A British military spokesman hit back by claiming that the UK did not “trumpet body counts” and had more stringent rules of engagement.

The row started when Mr Gates told the Los Angeles Times: “Most of the European forces, Nato forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency. I'm worried we're deploying {military advisers} that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counter-insurgency operations.”

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=508780&in_page_id=1811