£4.5m armoured cars sold for just £44,000 - because they were too heavy
Armoured vehicles designed to protect British troops from bomb and rocket attacks were sold at a knock-down price to a private military firm in Iraq.
The deal with an American company comes amid growing evidence that British soldiers are dying because they are not travelling in heavily fortified patrol cars.
The Ministry of Defence ruled that its £4.5million fleet of 14 Mamba troop carriers, which were bought for use during the Balkans crisis of the late Nineties, were 'too heavy' for patrols - and sold them all for just £44,000.
While British troops have to travel in lightly armoured, and more vulnerable, Land Rovers, four of the former Army vehicles are now being used in Baghdad by private military firm Blackwater Security Consulting. Others are in Estonia and Singapore.
At least 21 British troops patrolling in Land Rovers have been killed in roadside bomb attacks and ambushes by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The American firm that bought the Mambas describes them as 'the armoured personnel carrier of choice for Blackwater ops in Iraq'.
It is using the vehicles to run the gauntlet of snipers, car bombs and rocket attacks along the six-mile stretch of road between the city's US military-controlled Green Zone and Baghdad Airport - described as the most dangerous highway in the world.
Customers are often diplomats, VIPs or American government officials. On at least two occasions, Blackwater's Mambas have been hit. Each time the crew and passengers emerged unscathed.
Last night, the MoD insisted it had taken the right decision to sell off the vehicles. A spokesman said: "The Mamba was unsuitable for Iraq. They were not designed as patrol vehicles."
Last month, the MoD revealed that the Army is to get about 300 new, tougher armoured vehicles for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they will not be available until the end of the year. Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth insisted that the Government should have kept hold of the Mambas.
He said: "A vehicle which would have provided troops with better protection - and could have saved lives - was flogged off. If it is good enough for a private security company, it should have been good enough for our troops."
