Britain: The deaths of three British Army Black Watch soldiers in Iraq provoked a row yesterday between Britain's Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, and his anti-war opponents.
The Black Watch is a Scotland-based regiment and the leader of the Scottish National Party, Mr Alex Salmond, accused ministers of "duplicity" over the deployment which led to Thursday's fatal suicide car bombing ambush at a checkpoint manned by the soldiers.
Mr Hoon responded angrily, saying Mr Salmond's comments "demonstrate clearly there are no depths to which he will not sink". Mr Salmond was also rebuked by a fellow opponent of the war, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell.
But former Labour defence minister, Mr Peter Kilfoyle, backed the SNP leader's claim that moving the Black Watch troops, in response to a request from the United States, from the comparative safety of Basra in southern Iraq, to the far more dangerous central zone south of Baghdad, had been done for political and not military reasons.
The acrimonious exchanges went against the convention that politicians avoid wrangling over casualties.
Mr Salmond sparked the row by repeating his charge that the Scottish battalion was only sent north towards Baghdad to help the re-election campaign of President Bush.
Mr Hoon and fellow ministers have repeatedly insisted that the deployment was made on a "purely military basis".
However, Mr Salmond told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This deployment was political in its nature. We think the request was political, the answer was political during an American presidential election."
The Black Watch had been given "an impossible job" filling in for "4,000 American Marines", the SNP leader claimed.
"I know the families and I have spoken to some of them and there is a general concern about the nature of this deployment and there is anger - anger - that they should be left in this position," he said.
Anger was also the response from Mr Hoon who stressed that UK military commanders ordered the battalion into their new base, Camp Dogwood, only after thorough consideration of a request from American counterparts.
"I cannot understand why he does this. I cannot understand why someone should seek to take political advantage about the tragic deaths of three brave men and their interpreter," he said.
The men who died were named yesterday as Pte Paul Lowe (19), Sgt Stuart Gray (31), and Pte Scott McArdle (22), who all came from Fife in Scotland.
Sgt Gray's mother, Ms Mary Gray, yesterday hailed her son as "an experienced and professional soldier, a loving husband, father, son and brother, and a proud member of the Black Watch".
She said she was "deeply shocked" by the news of his death, but said that sadness was tinged with pride for her 31-year-old son. He leaves his wife, Wendy, and two children, Kirstin (12) and Darren (10).
Relatives of Pte McArdle said they were devastated by his death.
His uncle, Mr Martin McArdle, also attacked President Bush and the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair for sending troops into "a death trap" which, he said, he feared would become another Vietnam.
"We are devastated, you never think it's going to happen to your own until it does," he said outside the family home in Glenrothes.
The bodies of the dead men were due to be flown to Basra airport later yesterday for a repatriation ceremony before being returned to the United Kingdom and their families next week.
The brother of one of the three British army Black Watch soldiers killed in a suicide attack south of Baghdad said yesterday that he had died in a war started for money and oil.
Private Paul Lowe's younger brother Craig, an 18-year-old private who returned from Basra last month, paid tribute to his "brilliant brother, comrade and friend", who loved his job.
"I don't think he thought about the dangers, he just kept his chin up. He thought they shouldn't be there, they should all just be back here because it's a war which nobody knows why it was started or what it was done for."
- (PA, Reuters)