After more than 30 years in the Metropolitan police, Roger Bacon is not easily shocked. But each day he fears new anguish from the headlines and the worry that another British soldier in Iraq will die in similar circumstances to his own son.
At 11.13am on September 11 last year, Roger’s son Matthew, an army intelligence officer, was travelling from one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces to Basra air base when a roadside bomb exploded a few feet away from his Land Rover. He was killed instantly.
Sitting with his back to the blast, Matthew, 34, stood no chance as a copper projectile sliced through the vehicle and went through his chest. Three other occupants of the vehicle were seriously injured.
When the grim-faced officers arrived at Bacon’s London home to inform him and his wife that Matthew was dead, he could barely believe the news. It sank in only 10 days later when Matthew’s body was flown home.
However, Bacon’s grief turned to anger when he discovered the details of his son’s death. First, he was told that his son should have been travelling by helicopter but that it had been withdrawn because of a mechanical fault.
Then he discovered that the Land Rover Matthew had been in was not fit for its purpose. A relic of the troubles in Northern Ireland, the vehicles (known as “Snatches”) are a cheap and ageing form of army transport that provide minimal protection against roadside bombs.
There was nothing more between Matthew and the blast than a thin coating of bullet-proof Kevlar and composite fibreglass. “He had no protection at all from roadside bombs even though it was a known risk,” Bacon said last week.
“If they had used properly armoured vehicles, British soldiers who have been killed in Iraq would be alive today and Matthew may have been among them.”
That Matthew died in a blast from which he could have been shielded has caused his family understandable anger. But what makes Bacon’s blood boil is that no lessons appear to have been learnt from his son’s death.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to insist that the Snatch Land Rovers are fit for their purpose — but the death toll keeps rising.
To date, no fewer than 18 British soldiers have been killed in attacks on the thin-skinned vehicles from roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This represents nearly a quarter of all British troops killed as a result of hostile action in Iraq. Troops from other countries use more heavily armoured vehicles and have walked away from similar attacks.
“Each time someone (in the British Army) gets killed by a roadside bomb, we look to see what kind of vehicle they were in,” said Bacon. “Almost every time it’s one of these Land Rovers. It makes us very angry and very sad.”
Under pressure from relatives and after complaints from commanders in the field, the MoD carried out an assessment of the “overall protection level” afforded by the Snatch Land Rover in March last year. But it has refused to publish the findings, claiming the information could be useful to insurgents in Iraq.
Grieving relatives suspect a cover-up. They point out that common sense dictates that the prospects of surviving a bomb attack are much better in a modern armoured vehicle of the type used by the Americans and the United Nations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They add that our Land Rovers are being regularly targeted by insurgents in Iraq, so the only people benefiting from the suppression of the report is the MoD, which supplied the vehicles in the first place.
“The Snatch Land Rover is a very good vehicle but it’s not appropriate when there is a significant risk of roadside bombs,” said Lord Astor, a Conservative defence spokesman. “Lives are being lost and the government needs to think again.”
WHY are soldiers risking bomb attacks in vehicles with only enough armour to stop a bullet? Why have they not been offered better protected vehicles? When the British began peacetime patrols of southern Iraq, it was an operation to win “hearts and minds”. It was hoped the risk to troops in the post-Saddam era would be low. Even after Captain David Jones, 29, from Louth, was killed by a bomb hidden inside a lamp-post in Basra in August 2003, there was no alarm among commanders. The most likely threat was from small-arms fire, stones, petrol bombs and possibly from small, unsophisticated improvised bombs.
A decision was therefore made to ship the lightly armoured Land Rovers from Northern Ireland to Iraq. The vehicle was dubbed the “Snatch” because it was used in Northern Ireland to take suspects off the streets.
In Iraq it was meant to be used to swoop on agitators and to provide protection against bricks and bullets.
Experts say it was well known that the vehicle offered only limited protection against bomb blasts. Indeed, in Northern Ireland it had been withdrawn from service in some dangerous areas because it did not offer adequate protection against bombs.
British troops in Iraq were not unduly concerned. They liked the vehicle for its ease of use and southern Iraq was at that time relatively safe.
When Fusilier Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in June 2004, concerns began to mount about the Land Rover. Television footage showed the vehicle that Gentle had been travelling in was ripped apart by the explosion.
Any hopes that Gentle’s death was an isolated incident were soon dashed. In September, Corporal Marc Taylor, 27, from Ellesmere Port, and Gunner David Lawrence, 25, from Walsall, were both killed in an ambush on a Snatch Land Rover.
The MoD was convinced there was no need to panic. “Protection is provided through tactics, techniques and procedures as well as armour and other technical means,” it said. “It would be inappropriate to go into detail, as this could compromise the safety of our troops.”
Others were less convinced. As one officer said last week from the field: “They call the Snatch an armoured Land Rover but the minute the Iraqis saw one gutted by fire, they realised its composite armour was no armour at all.”
The anger of relatives and troops was aggravated by the fact that better vehicles were readily available. There was an alternative on the market that could be bought by the MoD off the shelf.
It is the RG-31, a mine- protected vehicle built in South Africa by a division of BAE Systems, the UK company. It is designed to withstand a roadside explosion and looks like a bulky big brother of the Land Rover. It is used by the Americans and the UN.
Yet the MoD refused to budge. An earlier version of the vehicle had been used in Bosnia and it suffered maintenance problems, officials claimed. It was also 50cm wider than the Land Rover and might not be able to access some areas. It sounded like a less than convincing analysis but the RG-31 was rejected for use in Iraq.
Richard North, an author and internet blogger who has been campaigning over the failure to invest in heavily armoured vehicles, said: “It was an incredibly crass decision to reject the RG-31 and shows yet again the MoD’s knack of creating a disaster of every procurement decision.
“They looked at whether to stick with cheap, second-hand Land Rovers that were not safe for use in Iraq at that time, or buy a vehicle that would save lives. What did they do? They stuck with the Land Rovers.”
The MoD said it would continue its search for a better protected “light utility vehicle”. But time was running out for the MoD and its troops.
Although concerns over the Land Rovers initially faded with no successful roadside bomb attacks on British troops for more than nine months, the devices returned with a vengeance last year. The insurgents had been honing their technology to deadly effect.
The new IEDs were triggered by an infrared device and fired a cone-shaped charge. The insurgents identified the Snatches as among the softest targets on the road.
Three soldiers — Lieutenant Richard Shearer, 26, from Nuneaton, Private Leon Spicer, 26, from Tamworth, and Private Phillip Hewett, 21, also from Tamworth — were killed in one attack in July 2005 in Al Amara.
On September 5, Fusilier Donal Meade, 20, from southeast London, and Fusilier Stephen Manning, 22, from Erith in Kent, died from a roadside bomb in southern Iraq. They were in a Snatch.
Six days later Major Matthew Bacon was killed. Two months later Sergeant John Jones, 31, from Castle Bromwich, was also killed. The new year brought no respite with three deaths in Snatches — taking the total dead to at least 18.
The army had equipped some Land Rovers with electronic counter-surveillance equipment, but it repeatedly failed to detect the new type of roadside bombs. The alternative was to use the Warrior armoured vehicles in Iraq, but commanders felt their imposing “profile” was too aggressive in the campaign to win the support of the Iraqis.
It meant officers were forced to send out young soldiers in the Land Rovers. One e-mail written by an officer in Iraq and seen by The Sunday Times states: “Commanders on the ground had no choice but to use what equipment they were provided with — the Snatches can go to areas that Warrior cannot because they are a third the size.
“That led to terrible decisions having to be made, decisions that have caused untold anguish and mental suffering that you can only guess at. I have seen very senior commanders cry because of it.”
ASTOR believes that the government owes the troops and the families of dead soldiers an explanation over its failure to offer an alternative to the Snatch. He is sceptical of the MoD’s claim that it is always the best available vehicle for the job. “As one soldier said to me, ‘Cherie Blair drives around London in an armoured car, but what about us?’ ” he said.
Faced with mounting concern, Labour has ordered some new armoured vehicles but they will not be available for some time and are not intended for use in Iraq.
Lord Drayson, the defence minister, insists the Snatch Land Rover “provides the mobility and level of protection we need” in Iraq.
Bacon, meanwhile, continues to pick up the newspapers each day with trepidation: “As my wife says, it’s like playing Russian roulette. It can happen at any time and you have no idea when.”
