Prince Harry's army role faces rethink over Iraq

LONDON (Reuters) - The military career of Prince Harry was left in doubt on Thursday after commanders decided Iraq was too dangerous a mission for the third in line to the British throne.

Defense analysts said the 22-year-old, who graduated as a junior army officer a year ago, would have trouble carving out a military career if he could not lead his men into active service.

"Harry is now going to be like a firefighter who is not allowed to fight a fire. The army has handled it badly," former Royal Air Force bomber pilot John Nichol, shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf war, told BBC television.

A spokesman for Harry said he was disappointed but fully understood the decision not to send him and remained committed to the army, but the U-turn provoked a backlash from parents whose sons have been killed in combat in Iraq.

Reg Keys, who lost his son Tom there, said "It would appear that Harry's life is more valuable than my son's or the other nearly 150 service personnel who have given their lives there."

"If it is too dangerous for Harry, it is too dangerous for the rest of the troops out there," said Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon died in the conflict.

Harry had been due to be deployed in Basra, in southern Iraq, with his Blues and Royals regiment in the coming weeks as part of the latest British troop rotation.

He had been determined to serve alongside his troops, saying "There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst (military academy) and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country."

Britain's Ministry of Defense said specific threats made by insurgent groups against Harry, including listing him as a kidnap target, had made any deployment far too risky.

"I've decided the risk to Prince Harry is too great," Richard Dannatt, the head of the British army, told reporters.

"I've also decided that the risk he brings to his troop and his squadron ... is also too great."

Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, told Reuters: "What this does show is that the state of affairs in southeast Iraq is pretty dire."

April was the most dangerous month for British forces in Iraq since the war in 2003 -- 12 soldiers were killed.

"The politicians have set the military an impossible task. The British have become targets of opportunity. It is completely unsafe to have people like Harry going in there," Rogers said.

Defense analyst Tim Ripley feared Harry would always be a victim of his own status.

"How can his deployment anywhere have any kind of anonymity. How can he shake off his celebrity status and merge into the rest of the army," he asked.

"He is in a Catch-22 situation unless his lifestyle becomes more low profile," Ripley told Reuters.

"Harry is maybe the only soldier in the British army who wants to go to Iraq. It is Kafkaesque and a bizarre set of affairs."