It cost in excess of €3m to run the Reserve Defence Force last year, at a time when four more barracks are being closed to save €5m.

I WISH to contribute my thoughts and opinion on the ongoing dispute about the cost versus value of the (Reserve Defence Forces) RDF.

A TEXAS man with no military experience tricked the army into letting him enter a reserve unit as a noncommissioned officer earlier this year, a deception that placed an untrained soldier in a leadership position in a time of war, a probe has found.

President George Bush will use his new budget to propose cutting the size of the US Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades and stripping up to €3.3bn next year from two fighter aircraft programmes, one involving British engine-maker Rolls-Royce.

Jury selection started today for the panel that will recommend a sentence for Army Reserve Private First Class Lynndie England, who pleaded guilty to mistreating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison camp in Iraq.

A US Army specialist was sentenced to eight months confinement today after he admitted abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.

The US Army reservist who tipped off investigators to abuse of Iraqi prisoners by his fellow soldiers is in protective military custody because of death threats, family members said.

US soldier Lynndie England has appeared in court charged with abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison.

A US soldier charged with abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison appeared in court today.

A US soldier accused of abusing Iraqis at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison faces more charges – this time for participating in sexually explicit photos.

DEFENCE lawyers for soldiers on trial in the Iraqi prisoner abuse case won permission yesterday to question two top American generals, and the military judge ordered that the Abu Ghraib prison not be torn down because it is a crime scene.

A lawyer for one of three soldiers accused in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal asked a military judge today to order a new hearing because the turmoil of Iraq prevented him from being able to question witnesses.

The commander of the military police company assigned to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad is prepared to testify that the top US general in Iraq was present during some interrogations at the prison and witnessed some of the abuse, it is reported today.

The Pentagon is pursuing five separate investigations into claims that Iraqi prisoners were abused.

The chief of the US Army Reserve said he has ordered a study of whether reservists are sufficiently trained in ethical conduct and how to treat prisoners following the release of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi PoWs being abused by US soldiers.

The commander of the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay has been sent to Iraq to oversee the treatment of 8,000 detainees as part of an investigation into torture at a US army-run prison outside Baghdad,

ABOUT two years ago the Minister for Defence announced that the FCA or the Army Reserve, as it's now called would eventually serve overseas.

MORE than 10,000 part-time troops have been ordered to prepare for active duty and movement overseas beginning as early as this week to support a US military build-up near Iraq, Army officials said yesterday.