LANCE-CORPORAL Barry Stephen of the Black Watch went to war on his birthday. The congratulatory e-mails sent by his family would have to wait: he and his fellow soldiers had a nation to liberate, a dictator to vanquish and weapons of mass destruction to secure.
Three days later, the fourth day of the war, he was dead: the first Scot killed in a river of blood that continues to flow fiercely five years on.
On 24 March, 2003 L-Cpl Stephen, 31, was on the outskirts of the southern town of Az Zubayr when his patrol was ambushed. He broke through the escape hatches of his armoured personnel carrier in order to man the machine gun but was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.
His flag-draped coffin was the tenth one carried off the Hercules aircraft at RAF Brize Norton, the sight of which almost caused his father to crumple. After the funeral in Perth, where the Union flag was replaced at the family's insistence by a Saltire, Alistair Stephen and the family were given his laptop. "The e-mails were all unopened," said Mr Stephen.
"I try not to dwell on it," he explained. "I don't like to watch the television reports. I don't want my son to have died for nothing.
I try to concentrate on the fact that he believed he was going over there to liberate and help the Iraqi people, but you can't help but think it's a load of crap.
We took out Saddam Hussein and then a lot of gangsters have come in and taken his place. I mean: did it do some good?"
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a conflict that has cost the lives of 175 British soldiers, 3,990 American soldiers and, at a minimum, 100,000 Iraqi civilians, it is a question that is echoing out across the globe.
This was never part of the plan when, five years ago tomorrow, 200,000 US troops and 45,000 British soldiers, supported by the "coalition of the willing" and without the support of the United Nations moved in to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and seize his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, some of which, the public were assured, could be used to threaten Britain within just 45 minutes. Military forces would be welcomed as liberators, oil revenues would fund reconstruction and Iraq would become a democratic beacon amid the political darkness of the Middle East.
Instead, after a brief honeymoon period, allied forces became the targets of an armed insurgency. . A new United Nations report, published yesterday, said Iraqis made up, at 38,286, the largest group of asylum seekers in the EU, a rise of almost 100 per cent on the previous year.
When Samuel McArdle, a retired paper mill worker from Glenrothes, Fife, watches the evening news he cannot help but think of that November day when his grandson, Private Scott McArdle, 22, of the elite reconnaissance platoon, with two other Scots soldiers, gave his life for the cause of Iraqi freedom.
"It's sad," said Mr McArdle, 68, "right sad to see what has happened to his cause. Look at the country – nothing good is coming out of it. I was watching a programme last night. They had to build walls around the city, keeping one half away from the other – is that what it was about?"
It is a sentiment shared by the families of anything from 100,000 to 1 million Iraqis, such is the gulf between the estimates of the civilian dead. Last night tensions between the Sunnis, who enjoyed power under Saddam and the Shiites, then oppressed but now favoured with authority, continued.
Three days later, the fourth day of the war, he was dead: the first Scot killed in a river of blood that continues to flow fiercely five years on.
On 24 March, 2003 L-Cpl Stephen, 31, was on the outskirts of the southern town of Az Zubayr when his patrol was ambushed. He broke through the escape hatches of his armoured personnel carrier in order to man the machine gun but was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.
His flag-draped coffin was the tenth one carried off the Hercules aircraft at RAF Brize Norton, the sight of which almost caused his father to crumple. After the funeral in Perth, where the Union flag was replaced at the family's insistence by a Saltire, Alistair Stephen and the family were given his laptop. "The e-mails were all unopened," said Mr Stephen.
"I try not to dwell on it," he explained. "I don't like to watch the television reports. I don't want my son to have died for nothing.
I try to concentrate on the fact that he believed he was going over there to liberate and help the Iraqi people, but you can't help but think it's a load of crap.
We took out Saddam Hussein and then a lot of gangsters have come in and taken his place. I mean: did it do some good?"
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a conflict that has cost the lives of 175 British soldiers, 3,990 American soldiers and, at a minimum, 100,000 Iraqi civilians, it is a question that is echoing out across the globe.
This was never part of the plan when, five years ago tomorrow, 200,000 US troops and 45,000 British soldiers, supported by the "coalition of the willing" and without the support of the United Nations moved in to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and seize his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, some of which, the public were assured, could be used to threaten Britain within just 45 minutes. Military forces would be welcomed as liberators, oil revenues would fund reconstruction and Iraq would become a democratic beacon amid the political darkness of the Middle East.
Instead, after a brief honeymoon period, allied forces became the targets of an armed insurgency. . A new United Nations report, published yesterday, said Iraqis made up, at 38,286, the largest group of asylum seekers in the EU, a rise of almost 100 per cent on the previous year.
When Samuel McArdle, a retired paper mill worker from Glenrothes, Fife, watches the evening news he cannot help but think of that November day when his grandson, Private Scott McArdle, 22, of the elite reconnaissance platoon, with two other Scots soldiers, gave his life for the cause of Iraqi freedom.
"It's sad," said Mr McArdle, 68, "right sad to see what has happened to his cause. Look at the country – nothing good is coming out of it. I was watching a programme last night. They had to build walls around the city, keeping one half away from the other – is that what it was about?"
It is a sentiment shared by the families of anything from 100,000 to 1 million Iraqis, such is the gulf between the estimates of the civilian dead. Last night tensions between the Sunnis, who enjoyed power under Saddam and the Shiites, then oppressed but now favoured with authority, continued.
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