Letters | 29 January 2011

The scale of the loss

Sir: You state that ‘the British army was defeated in Basra’ (leading article, 22 January) as though it were a re-run of Alamein or Waterloo. Would it not be more true to say that the undermanned and under-resourced segment of the army in Basra was insufficient to cope with the task it was given? Had it been able to deploy force on the same scale as the Americans, perhaps the result would have been different. It has been suggested that the government couldn’t face the possibility of heavy casualties in such a scenario, but unavailability of troops must have been an overwhelming factor.

All deaths in action are terribly sad. But we now seem to be unable to accept any losses. Every fatality being read out before PMQs, which I understand the army hates, and TV footage of every funeral cortège passing through Wootton Bassett, greatly exacerbates the situation.