Forty soldiers have suffered life-threatening injuries while serving in Iraq, mostly leading to loss of limbs, the Ministry of Defence revealed yesterday.
A total of 230 servicemen, including the 40 most seriously injured, had been wounded by hostile fire since the start of the military campaign in March 2003, John Reid, the Defence Secretary, said.
The death toll stands at 98, of which 75 were in combat. The figures were produced during a visit by Mr Reid to the Armed Forces’ Defence Medical and Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court, Surrey, where soldiers with amputated limbs are fitted with prosthetic ones. It was the first time that a defence minister had visited the centre in two years.
Accurate figures for non-fatal casualties arising from Operation Telic in Iraq have been hard to come by because the MoD always claimed that overall records were not maintained centrally.