"We're using taxpayers' money to relax at Camp Eden," Caleb Noltensmejer, 52 said in the latest issue of CS Bladet, a internal newsletter for Denmark's largest Defense employee union CS.

Noltensmejer, who has spent 30 years in the army, is part of a scouting squadron stationed at Camp Eden near Qurnah, in the region of the southern city of Basra, which is under British command.

"We stand watch a bit in the watch towers, do the dishes after the meals, wash the floor of the Internet cafe and of the work-out tent, and we spend a lot of time housekeeping and on guard duty," he said.

Noltensmejer claimed that the Danish officers in Iraq, along with the top brass back in Denmark have realized that most of the Danish soldiers are not trained for the missions expected of them in the war-torn country.

The fact that only one Danish soldier has died Iraq -- killed by friendly fire -- since the Scandinavian country started sending troops there last year, has little to do with their skills, and a lot to do with the fact that they rarely leave their base, Noltensmejer charged.

Colonel Niels-Joergen Qvist of the Danish army's operational command rejected the criticism.

"The soldiers who took over in Iraq last October 12 have covered about 160,000 kilometers, confiscated 314 weapons and arrested 65 people," he told

Gerhardt Bredo Simonsen, the vice president of CS, however, insisted that while the Danish troops may have covered many kilometers in Iraq, the timing for their hikes was more important than the the distance they had travelled.

"If one knowingly avoids the areas and the moments that are dangerous, one doesn't make any progress on a military level," he told Danish daily Jylland-Posten Tuesday.

WAR.WIRE