British Covered Up Hundreds Of Iraqi Casualties

By John Byrne
Monday, October 12th, 2009 -- 8:53 am
Courtesy Of The Raw Story

The British military's chain of command has instructed the country's top investigators not to examine hundreds of incidents involving Iraqi deaths and serious injury, a former British military police officer told the BBC Sunday.

"I've seen documentary evidence that there were incidents running into the hundreds involving death and serious injury to Iraqis where the chain of command of the Army had decided that the circumstances did not warrant a Royal Military Police investigation," the former British Army officer, whose face was obscured, told a BBC interviewer. "And if you look at the general picture that the media says, Afghanistan seems a lot quieter in terms of alleged misconduct of British troops, that to me is quite concerning, because it tells me that the Army hasn't suddenly gotten a lot better. It tells me that the Royal Military Police are very efficiently toeing the party line for the Army."

The BBC interview has received scant attention, meriting only a brief mention in the UK Guardian and little coverage by outlets cataloged in Google News. Video of the interview is available here.

"It is an extremely dark and sorry situation," the officer added. "I think that the vast majority of soldiers have served the country well and with distinction. It is the actions of a few that have been shown to be bad apples. But it is very fair to say that because the system is so structurally flawed, and some of the decision making has been so perverse, that I is fair to say that the barrel is probably rotten."

The Royal Military Police is charged with policing military personnel, service property and military operations.