Britain’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today hammered Prince Harry for ‘boasting’ about shooting dead 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
The Tory MP, 52, said the Duke of Sussex had ‘let down’ his former Army comrades by revealing his kill count in his autobiography ‘Spare’.
He is the most senior minister to speak out on the issue, which experts claimed put Brits at risk and prompted anger from across the Armed Forces.
Mr Wallace was asked about it by LBC’s Nick Ferrari today, and said: ‘I frankly think boasting about tallies… Distorts the fact that the army is a team game. It’s a team enterprise. It’s not about who can shoot the most’.
Mr Wallace told LBC’s Nick Ferrari today that Harry had been wrong to ‘boast’ about Taliban kills
Prince Harry patrols through the deserted town of Garmisir on January 2, 2008 in Helmand province. In his book he said he regarded Taliban fighters as ‘chess pieces’ during operations
The Defence Secretary, who is in charge of Britain’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said Harry has ‘let down’ his ex-colleagues in the Armed Forces.
He said: ‘If you start talking about who did what [you’re] letting down all those other people, because you’re not a better person because you did and they didn’t’.
Harry said last month he included the detail of killing 25 Taliban fighters in his controversial memoir Spare to reduce suicides in veteran communities, during an appearance on US television.
The Duke of Sussex has been criticised after writing in his memoirs, Spare, that he killed 25 insurgents while serving in Afghanistan, referring to those soldiers as ‘chess pieces’.
His admissions – in defiance of the long-running code of not discussing their ‘kill count’ – have particularly upset members of the Armed Forces family with mental health issues.
Within hours of the CBS broadcast, British troops and their families dismissed the claim as many veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder found Harry’s admission hugely troubling.
Harry was unchallenged by Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show, when he insisted ‘my words are not dangerous’ – even though serious concerns were raised about the safety of the Royal Family and of British citizens overseas when the revelation emerged.
He was also widely accused of emboldening the Taliban, who have returned Afghanistan to a brutal dictatorship since 2021 when Western troops left the country.
Leaders of the militant regime mocked Harry and called for his ‘war crimes’ to be investigated by an international tribunal.
The Duke of Sussex told Colbert his words had been twisted but condemnation of his attempt to deflect criticism was led by Derek Hunt, whose son Nathan served with the prince in Afghanistan but later struggled with PTSD and eventually took his own life.
Mr Hunt, who campaigns on behalf of soldiers suffering with mental health issues, told the Mail: ‘However he tries to justify his comments, what he said cannot be unsaid. This is too painful for too many people to be discussed so loosely in public.
‘Veterans were not crying out for this debate, they have spent years trying to forget about the realities of combat, such as taking people’s lives.
‘If the disclosure was part of his therapy, then it should have stayed between him and his therapist. I think he has brought back a lot of memories for those men and women who served and are trying to forget. If all this was for their benefit then Harry has made a mistake.’
Harry’s attempt to persuade the US television audience that he was attempting to help veterans was met with cheers in the New York studio, which had invited a number of veterans.
He told Colbert: ‘The reason as to why I decided to share this in my book… I made a choice to share it because, having spent nearly two decades working with veterans all around the world, I think the most important thing is to be honest and to give space to others to share their experiences without any shame.
‘And my whole goal, my attempt with sharing that detail is to reduce the number of suicides.’
More than 2,000 British soldiers and veterans are believed to have killed themselves since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Suicide rates in military communities have also risen in recent years. The risk of suicide among armed forces veterans aged under 25 is four times higher than for civilians, according to recent research.
Harry also told Colbert the media had wrongly accused him of ‘boasting’ about his kills. In doing so the media has endangered his family, according to the prince.
He said: ‘The most dangerous lie they [the media] have told is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan. My words are not dangerous, but the spin of my words are (sic) very dangerous to my family.
‘I would say, if I heard anyone else boasting about that kind of thing I would be angry. [The media] had the context. It wasn’t just that they had one line, they had the whole section. They ripped it away and said here he is boasting on this. And that is the choice they have made.’
In fact, this interpretation of the prince’s remarks was introduced by numerous commentators, including Conservative MP Bob Stewart, who said: ‘I wonder why he is doing such things. Real soldiers tend to shy away. People I know don’t boast about such things. They rather regret they had to do it.’
Daily Mail (UK)