LONDON (AFP) - British newspapers are keeping Prime Minister Tony Blair in the hot seat by playing up the nation's grief and anger over the deaths of three soldiers redeployed to a US-run sector of Iraq.
For the second day in a row, the national dailies ran front-page stories about the deaths of three soldiers in a suicide attack after their Black Watch regiment redeployed in the last week to an insurgent-hit area near Baghdad.
The Daily Express, a mass circulation tabloid, ran a 12-year-old girl's poignant farewell note to her father who was killed in the bombing under the headline: "So Is It Really Worth It Mr. Blair?"
"To Dad, Love you and miss you, Love Kirstin," read the note to Sergeant Stuart Gray from his daughter Kirstin Gray.
The Express and other newspapers also ran a searing condemnation from Private Craig Lowe, a serving soldier whose brother Paul was one of the three killed.
He said his 19-year-old-brother had been deeply opposed to a conflict fought over "money and oil".
"He (Paul) 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," said Lowe, who himself returned from Iraq last month.
The Independent newspaper ran a front-page photograph of Paul Lowe wearing his ceremonial military kilt against a backdrop of the number 19, his age. The headline read: "A boy who just wanted to come home."
The Ministry of Defense in London on Friday named Private Paul Lowe, along with Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, and 22-year-old Private Scott McArdle as the soldiers killed along with an Iraqi civilian translator.
The trio, all from the Scottish-based Black Watch regiment, died on Thursday afternoon when a vehicle-borne suicide bomb exploded at a checkpoint they were manning by the Euphrates River.
Eight other soldiers were wounded and flown to a combat hospital in Baghdad, three of whom were in a serious condition, the British army said.
The incident happened just two days after the 850-strong Black Watch battle group started full operations at Camp Dogwood, a bleak outpost to the west of the insurgent-hit town of Mahmudiyah, southwest of Baghdad.
The regiment, previously based in the more peaceful southern city of Basra, took over the region from US soldiers who are preparing to fight insurgents in the city of Fallujah.
The redeployment has been hugely controversial in Britain, with Blair's critics accusing him of sending troops into harm's way largely as a symbolic gesture to show that the United States is not fighting alone in Iraq.
Blair has insisted the decision was military, not political.
Britain has around 8,500 military personnel in Iraq, as against around 138,000 US troops. It has suffered 73 military deaths since US-led troops invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Speaking ahead of a European Union summit in Brussels, Blair expressed his condolences to the families of the dead soldiers, saying their regiment was playing a crucial role ahead of Iraq's elections in January.
These polls were "the single most important element of bringing stability to Iraq and therefore stability to the wider Middle East", Blair said, standing alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
However the deaths, so soon after the redeployment, were bleak political news for a prime minister who has seen his opinion poll ratings tumble since he opted to back the invasion of Iraq.
Blair came under swift condemnation, with Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, bitterly contrasting "the bravery of our soldiers with the duplicity of the politicians who sent them there".
The comments were angrily condemned by the government, which accused Salmond of seeking to make political capital from the deaths.
The Conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph denounced Salmond's remarks and accused politicians of exploiting the situation to their own advantage.
It also reminded readers: "The Black Watch is one of the army's toughest regiments and those who enlist in our forces are volunteers, not conscripts."
11/06/2004 - 03:22 GMT - AFP