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Soldier's father: Bush does not care
Last updated at 00:00am on 14.11.03The father of the youngest UK soldier killed in Iraq said today that George Bush was meeting the families of British troops purely for his own gain after the US President announced he would tell them their loved ones died for a "noble cause".
Robert Kelly, whose 18-year-old son Private Andrew Kelly was killed in a shooting accident in Basra, said Mr Blair and Mr Bush did not care about the deaths of British troops.
He said: "For these people to meet families, it is only for their own gain. They are not sympathetic towards people like me. They don't really care that my son lost his life.
"Tony Blair doesn't care. He doesn't care about anyone. So what does George Bush care about our families and my family? He doesn't care."
Mr Kelly was speaking ahead of the president's three-day state visit next week as it was revealed Mr Bush would meet relatives of British soldiers killed in Iraq to tell them their loved ones died for a "noble cause".
Mr Bush said he will offer the relatives the sympathy "of the American people and the prayers of the president".
And he will tell them "that their loved ones did not die in vain".
When asked about the families of the 54 British soldiers killed in Iraq, Mr Bush said: "The actions we have taken will make the world more secure and the world more peaceful in the long run.
"I view this as an historic moment and I will share with them - just like I share with our own families here - a deep grief, my sorrow for the sacrifice, but the fact that what is taking place today is a noble cause."
Mr Kelly said he had not been invited to meet the president, and did not want to.
"It would not mean anything to me," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"I am not American so I can't really judge the American president like our Prime Minister."
Private Kelly, of 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was killed on May 6.
His 53-year-old father had said earlier that he did not think the war was justified and questioned whether Mr Blair would have gone to war if his own son had been asked to fight.
Mr Kelly, from Saltash in Cornwall, is a former Chief Artificer with the Royal Navy and was in the armed forces for 24 years, during which time he served in the Falklands conflict.
He said his son died for a cause he believed in and did it "bravely and he gave 100 per cent".
But he said more should have been done to avoid the war. Saddam Hussein could have been removed in a different way and war should have been the last resort.
"Tony Blair should have listened to his own people," he said.
"A lot of people were against the war," he said.
