British leave Basra with a whimper not a roar

It has been announced that the British will formally hand over Basra, the most important area of their remit, to the Iraqi forces this coming Sunday despite three car bombs going off in Amarah, a province the British handed over to the Iraqis in April, on Wednesday killing 41 people. Although the bombs did not affect Basra directly it must have been an uncomfortable reminder of the 'success' British policy has had in their previous areas of responsibility.

How different it all seems from the comparatively breezy days when the British Army was giving the US tactful reminders on how to win the hearts and minds of the populace by wearing caps not helmets, making friends with the kiddies and strolling round town almost like tourists. Well that worked for a time but soon the chickens came home to roost and the British army was forced into a siege mentality in Basra from which it never managed to escape.


British tanks hit by shells in Basra


Back in August of this year, a senior US official criticised British policy in Basra, driven by Gordon Brown's political needs, of pulling too many troops out too quickly. Now if we forget for a moment that the whole responsibility for this mess lies with the United States for invading the country in the first place and stick to a purely objective military analysis, the critic does seem to have been proved right.

As I have said in previous articles, and again forgetting the moral rights and wrongs of being there in the first place, we never had enough troops to do the job properly. Thanks, mainly, to Blair's desire to please America and to our blind political refusal to accept that our military commitments with a small standing army are stretched to breaking point. I feel sorry for the guys on the ground and total contempt for the politicians who put them there.

Not for the first time the British army has found itself between a rock and a hard place and is now having to hand over Basra with as much dignity as it can muster - and after the heady enthusiasm of four years ago that can't be much.

It is grim and laughable to see the news headlines now. Under Saddam, whatever kind of monster he may have been to political opponents, women walked the streets of Iraq's cities freely, many in western clothing. Girls were educated in some of the best schools in the middle east. Now, in the wake of Bush's 'invasion to bring democracy', the British leave Basra in the hands of radical Islamic militias, many of whom it seems have infiltrated the very army we are leaving in charge.

Slogans are now painted on the walls of Basra warning women that if they do not wear wear full Islamic dress they will be beaten or even killed. Four women have been murdered in Basra already. The city is factionalised and divided. People live in fear. Is this what we committed the lives of British troops to bring about? Thanks to modern media coverage its not even possible to support a political lie. Now they are saying 'we are leaving a tolerable situation', 'we never promised total success' etc etc. The truth is that the dissidents have won.

At least, in the north of the country, America has succeeded to some extent in halting the advance of Al Queda and other insurgents by the changed policy of literally saturating northern Iraq with American troops, a policy the British could never hope to emulate. And so our troops, who deserve to have been treated better, are leaving Basra with a huge failure sign invisibly hanging over their heads...not because of any shortcomings on their part but simply because the political planning was short sighted and dumb. A similar disaster is waiting to happen in Afghanistan where the Taleban are not standing to fight but disappearing into the mountains to regroup. It's their country and their terrain. They will just wait it out and come again as they have done with every occupier that preceded them.

Is there any good news from Iraq. Well sure there is! Surprise, surprise, oil production is higher than even pre-war levels it was announced today AND the conquerors of Iraq are taking an ever increasing number of millions of barrels pouring money into the coffers of THEIR oil companies of course. Oh and of course those self same conquerors have taken responsibility for Iraq's oil revenues, promising to spend the money wisely, but many questions have been asked about how and where that money has been spent.




Well, Blair and his pathetic little puppy dog act have gone, and Brown is at least getting the British out of a hole even if that upsets our friends and allies across the pond. But they won't be too upset for long. It's been a far costlier war than that bastard Rumsfeld promised when he thought the only casualties would be thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children..and who gave a stuff about them? Instead America has lost nearly 4000 dead since the 'war' began and had nearly 30,000 wounded.

However I'm sure the Bush administration, and especially the supporters of the Project for the New American Century, who were responsible for the initiation of this ghastly crime against humanity will feel its all been worth it. After all they've got their hands on the oil for the first time since Iraq nationalised its oil in 1972....just what they really wanted all along!