Dannatt: Give troops payouts for Iraq slurs
HUNDREDS of British soldiers who have been falsely accused of wrongdoing in foreign conflicts deserve compensation, the former head of the Army has said.
Lord Dannatt suggested that the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat), which is investigating almost 1,500 allegations of mistreatment and unlawful killing of Iraqis, should be wound down.
He highlighted the case of Rachel Webster, a highly commended Army officer who was arrested and physically restrained in her own home during a dawn raid. She has since been paid thousands of pounds in compensation.
It comes as Theresa May is poised to announce, at the Conservative Party conference, a crackdown on “no win, no fee” lawyers who “impugn” the name of the British Army.
Lord Dannatt told The Daily Telegraph: “The Webster case was appalling and I’m delighted she has been compensated. I think there’s a strong case to examine that [compensation] if
only for future governments to realise the consequences of their actions.
“When people like Rachel Webster were clearly wronged, it has to be made right. An apology is one thing but if appropriate there must be financial compensation.”
He warned that “wholesale, fallacious accusations” are undermining the morale of the Armed Forces and the ability of soldiers to fight.
He said: “To have these wide-ranging inquiries into what are repeatedly turning out to be wholesale, fallacious accusations is undermining for morale and the Army’s effectiveness.
“In the future, soldiers will feel inhibited in doing what they think is right for fear of retrospective investigation, and that is incredibly dangerous.”
He said that wrongdoing should be dealt with using the military’s established arrangements.
“We have our own tried and tested military justice system when there is a genuine likelihood that action needs to be taken against individuals, be it sanctions or a court-martial,” he said.
“The hundreds of allegations put forward by certain legal firms against soldiers in Iraq simply do not add up.
“One of the Army’s six core values is ‘Respect for Others’ – to say we serially ignored that is utterly disrespectful.”
Lord Dannatt also said that the decision to invade Iraq was a “strategic error of near Biblical proportions”, adding that there “wasn’t a clear plan”. The controversy over Ihat came after the revelation in The Sunday Telegraph that an Army major awarded two medals for bravery is facing prosecution with two colleagues over an Iraqi teenager who drowned in a canal outside Basra in 2003. The three men were first investigated in 2004 and cleared in 2006 after an inquiry.
It could take until next year for the Service Prosecuting Authority (SPA) – the military equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service – to decide if charges should be brought.
Even if the SPA concludes no charges should be brought, the men will then face another official inquiry that could last another two years.
Lord Dannatt accused Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, of trying to “absolve himself ” in the wake of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War.
He said: “I think Chilcot was fair as far as Blair was concerned. It was very interesting listening to his press conference when the report was published, and he was doing his best to accept certain responsibility and absolve himself.”