Protection suits arrived late

Shadow defence secretary Nicholas Soames says that with the right protective gear one soldier would certainly not have been killed in Iraq.

A key Commons watchdog has said supply failures left forces without vital kit.

Mr Hoon has told MPS the report showed individual soldiers were protected during the conflict.

Protective suits

A National Audit Office (NAO) report last month said it was a major achievement to deploy 46,000 of British troops to Iraq within 10 weeks - half the time taken in the first Gulf War.

But some of the Challenger tanks were only finally fully armoured up for desert warfare 48 hours before they went into battle.

Some tanks and armoured vehicles never received the protective nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) protection filters with which they were meant to be equipped.

In Tuesday's debate, Mr Soames said it was "beyond doubt" that Cornish soldier Steven Roberts would not have been killed if he had been using the right protective equipment.

The 33-year-old tank commander from Wadebridge was one of the first casualties in the war when he was shot during a riot in Basra.

'Lives lost'

Defence officials are investigating whether it was a so-called friendly fire incident.

The sergeant had handed over his heavy flack jacket to an infantryman.

Mr Soames said: "What dereliction of duty can there be than for a minister to authorise the deployment of troops into harms' way without adequate protection?

"How many more lives might have been lost, given the scale of the inexcusable and perplexing shortage of body armour?"

There were great successes for the troops in Iraq, he said, and there would always be logistics problems.

But the worst of the failings highlighted in the report were potentially catastrophic, he added.

"The secretary of state should go," he concluded.

Logistics successes

Mr Hoon said Operation Telic in Iraq had been a "resounding success" but there were a number of things which could have been done better.

The Ministry of Defence had already published two reports on the lessons to be learnt from the conflict.

About the same amount of troops and equipment had been deployed to Iraq last year as in the 1991 Gulf War - in about half the time.

"As the NAO recognises, this was a major achievement," he said.

The report concluded that the overall level of protection from nuclear, chemical and biological equipment was good, he said.

He said it was "rather disturbing" that Tory MPs were picking on parts of the report without reading all the findings.

Priority

Mr Hoon said he could not go into the details of Sergeant Roberts' case while an inquiry went on.

Enhanced body armour had been issued for as many troops as possible but some of the 38,000 sets sent did not reach units before the war began, said Mr Hoon.

Commanders had, however, given priority to infantry units.

And the NAO had found that the supply problems overall "did not affect operational capability".

Mr Hoon asked the Conservatives: "Are they really saying that ministers should have overruled the advice given by military commanders in theatre?"

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Paul Keetch said the families of British troops killed in Iraq wanted explanations, not just calls for Mr Hoon's resignation.

He continued: "The concerns about kit reaised in the NAO report were well understood before the war began. But at the time, critics were told we were 'unreasonably fuelling criticism of logistics failures'.

"I hope that the secretary of state would not make the same accusation to the family of Sergeant Steven Roberts and indeed the others of people killed during this war."

Iraqi deaths

Mr Hoon was also asked about the deaths of at least five protesters in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah.

Iraqi police and British troops, who control the region, fired shots when ar protest about job shortages turned violent.

Mr Hoon said ministers would be able to give more information once the incident had been investigated.

But he argued there had been "serious disorder" which British troops had handled with their "customary expertise".