"As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human," Griffin said.

CAIRO, March 12, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – In the first such case, a British soldier has quit the army in disgust of the "illegal and immoral" practices of the US-led forces in Iraq, a leading British newspaper revealed on Sunday, March 12.

"As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen," Ben Griffin, a trooper in the Special Air Service's counter-terrorist team, told the Telegraph, using the term used by the Nazis to describe Jews and Russians.

Returning for a week-long leave in London in March 2005, Griffin told his commander he was no longer prepared to go back to Iraq to fight alongside with the US forces.

"I think the war in Iraq is a war of aggression and is morally wrong and, more importantly, we are making the situation in the Middle East more unstable," he told the British daily.

"It's not just wrong, it's a major military disaster. There was no plan for what was to happen after Saddam went, no end-game."

Without a UN mandate, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in March 2003, to topple Saddam Hussein's regime on claiming of possessing weapons of mass destruction, a claim since proved as groundless and seriously flawed.

The International Committee for Red Cross (ICRC), the guardian of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in warfare, had lambasted "utter contempt" for humanity in US-occupied Iraq.

Griffin said the Iraq war was being lost because of the US forces draconian measures against Iraqi civilians.

"I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong," he told the Telegraph.

The SAS soldier recalled that in so many cases British troops were given orders by the Americans to detain civilians though they pose no security threat.

"The Americans had this catch-all approach to lifting suspects. The tactics were draconian and completely ineffective.

"The Americans were doing things like chucking farmers into Abu Ghraib [the notorious prison in Baghdad where US troops abused and tortured Iraqi detainees] or handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well they were going to be tortured."

A former US Marine has urged the Iraqi people and Muslims around the globe to forgive the US "war crimes" in Iraq after he applied for political asylum in Canada in protest at the "atrocities" committed by the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The British soldier believes many of the actions of US troops were colored by religious and race considerations.

"As far as I was concerned that meant that because these people were a different color or a different religion, they didn't count as much."

He divided the Americans into "complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis" and others who were in Iraq because the army was going to pay their college fees.

He asserted that except for "one or two enlightened officers," the majority of the Americans had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture.

"Their attitude fuelled the insurgency. I think the Iraqis detested them.

"You can not invade a country pretending to promote democracy and behave like that."

Click to read Griffin's interview in full