Widow's plea to Bush: declassify 'friendly fire' papers

The widow of a British victim of US "friendly fire" in Iraq has appealed to President George Bush to allow access to passages blacked out in a report into the attack that killed her husband.

Susan Hull said she met President Bush in November 2003, and he had promised he would help in determining how her husband, Matty, was killed.

Yesterday, as the inquest into Lance Corporal Hull's death drew to a close, she said: "President Bush, this is the last day you can help us. We ask that you give the coroner just one single page [of the report]."

The hearing, at Oxford coroner's court, has been told that two US A-10 "Tankbusters" were not authorised to carry out the attack in which L/Cpl Hull was killed. Stuart Matthews, an air controller serving at a British base codenamed Manila Hotel, who was directing the pilots, told the court that he was "gobsmacked" that they had carried out strikes on the wrong target - mistaking a British convoy for an Iraqi mobile missile battery.

L/Cpl Hull's family maintain that vital questions about the command and communications situation could not be asked because passages had been blacked out of an official American report into the incident which was given to the British coroner.

Mrs Hull, flanked by L/Cpl Hull's mother, Mandy, 46, his father, Richard, 50, and his sister, Lauren McCourt, 18, appealed for this section of the document to be given to the coroner. She said: "The coroner has asked twice for this document. To President Bush and the US government: we implore you to release the 11 lines and let the coroner have these today, so that our family can feel more satisfied with the transparency of this inquest."

Mrs Hull said she had no option but to make the appeal because last-minute efforts by lawyers acting on behalf of L/Cpl Hull to obtain the missing information have failed.

The Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner, Andrew Walker, had to adjourn the inquest and launch an attempt to persuade the US to declassify a cockpit video recording of the incident.

When he reopened the inquest on Monday, Mr Walker said he had agreed to take a "pragmatic" approach and use the American cockpit recording, by then declassified only for viewing by the MoD, himself and the Hull family.

In return, he said he hoped the US would provide a copy of the US Rules of Engagement, and an uncensored version of interviews with the pilots and their ground controllers. But the inquest heard that despite these requests being renewed every day this week, they have been declined.

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