Bush sympathy move a ‘selfish stunt’
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."
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 said his son died for a cause he believed in and did it "bravely and he gave 100%."
But he said more should have been done to avoid the war.
The father of a military policeman killed in Iraq also angrily rejected Mr Bush's claims that his son died for a "noble cause."
Reg Keys, 51, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys died defending a civilian police station in Al Majar al-Kabir near Basra four days short of his 21st birthday, said he would like to meet Mr Bush to tell him that he was responsible for his son's death. Mr Keys said: "I am totally against his visit."
