A coroner has called it "inexcusable" that US authorities failed to release evidence about the first UK casualties of the Iraq war.

Andrew Walker was speaking at the reopening of an inquest into the fatal helicopter crash in March 2003.

The eight servicemen died along with four US marines in Kuwait.

American authorities would not give evidence or provide relevant videotape to the court despite all efforts by the Minsitry of Defence, the coroner said.

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President George W Bush's concept of a "war on terror" has given strength to terrorists by making them feel part of something bigger, Hilary Benn has said.

The international development secretary told a meeting in New York the phrase gives a shared identity to small groups with widely differing aims.

And Mr Benn, a candidate for Labour's deputy leadership, confirmed that UK officials would stop using the term.

The White House coined the phrase after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

Mr Benn said: "In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone.

"And because this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives."

It is "the vast majority of the people in the world" against "a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common", he said.

"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence.

"And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

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For weeks after his death, the Pentagon maintained that Pat Tillman was killed in an enemy ambush, even after a top general tried to warn President Bush that the NFL star-turned-soldier likely died by friendly fire, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

In the memo sent to a superior officer seven days after Tillman's death, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that the evidence strongly pointed to friendly fire and the nation's leaders risked embarrassing themselves if they publicly said otherwise.

"I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman's death become public," McChrystal wrote.

The April 29, 2004, memo, was addressed to Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command, and was intended as a warning to Bush and acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee.

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