October, 2004, The Telegraph:
US tactics condemned by British officers
Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.
One senior Army officer told The Telegraph that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of "unease and frustration" among the British high command.
The officer, who agreed to the interview on the condition of anonymity, said that part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".
Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.
"The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn't in Iraq. It's easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."
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"The British response in Iraq has been much softer. During and after the war the British set about trying to win the confidence of the local population. There have been problems, it hasn't been easy but on the whole it was succeeding."
The officer believed that America had now lost the military initiative in Iraq, and it could only be regained with carefully planned, precision attacks against the "terrorists".
"The US will have to abandon the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut approach - it has failed," he said. "They need to stop viewing every Iraqi, every Arab as the enemy and attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people.
"Our objective is to create a stable, democratic and safe Iraq. That's achievable but not in the short term. It is going to take up to 10 years."
The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people" - was brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, published in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior: Jews, Slaves and gipsies.
November, 2005 - The Spectator:
The proverbial library of successful counter-insurgencies -- a woefully small collection -- is dominated by the near-legendary campaigns of the British, including those carried out in Malaya, Aden, and Oman.
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Known as the "soft approach," the British strategy in southern Iraq centered on non-aggressive, nearly passive responses to violent flare-ups.... As a symbol of their faith in stability-by-civility, the British military took to donning the soft beret while on patrol, avoiding the connotations of war supposedly raised by the American-style Kevlar helmets.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, this "soft" approach seemed remarkably successful, especially when juxtaposed with the chaos that had engulfed other parts of Iraq. Basra seemed to adapt relatively well to the new order of things, with little in the way of street battles or casualties. Both the British and American media -- ever-ready to point out the comparable failures of American arms -- energetically hailed the peaceful and stable atmosphere in Basra as a significant indicator of the virtues of the British approach, upholding it as the tactical antithesis to the brutal and aggressive Yanks. The Dallas Morning News reported in 2003 that military experts from Britain were already boasting that U.S. forces in Iraq could "take a cue from the way their British counterparts have taken control of Basra." Charles Heyman, editor of the highly-respected defense journal Jane's, asserted: "The main lesson that the Americans can learn from Basra and apply to Baghdad is to use the 'softly-softly' approach."
The reporting also featured erudite denunciations of the rigid rules of engagement that governed the United States military, while simultaneously championing British outreach. Ian Kemp, a noted British defense expert, suggested in November 2004 that the "major obstacle" in past U.S. occupations and peacekeeping efforts was their inability to connect with locals due to the doctrinal preeminence of force protection. In other words, had Americans possessed the courage to interface with the Iraqi, they might enjoy greater success.
It did not take long before the English press allowed the great straw man of a violent American society to seep into their explanations for the divergent approaches. The Sunday Times of London proclaimed "armies reflect their societies for better or for worse. In Britain, guns are frowned upon -- and British troops faced with demonstrations in Northern Ireland must go through five or six stages, including a verbal warning as the situation gets progressively more nasty, before they are allowed to shoot. In America, guns are second nature." Such flimsy and anecdotal reasoning -- borne solely out of classical European elitist arrogance -- tinged much of the reporting out of Basra.
AS A RESULT OF THE EFFUSIVE media celebration, even some in the British military began believing their own hype, with soldiers suggesting to reporters in May 2003 that the U.S. military should "look to them for a lesson or two." As a British sergeant told the Christian Science Monitor: "We are trained for every inevitability and we do this better than the Americans." According to other unnamed British military officials, America had "a poor record" at keeping the peace while Basra only reinforced the assertion that the British maintain "the best urban peacekeeping force in the world."
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Due to the soft-handed British response to extremist escalation, Basra now teeters on the precipice of mob rule.
November, 2005 - The New York Times:
Blair Says a Troop Cut in Iraq Is a 'Possibility' Next Year
LONDON, Nov. 14 - British officials have begun to talk, however gingerly, about withdrawing their troops from Iraq.
On Monday, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was "entirely reasonable" to "talk about the possibility" that the troops could begin leaving by the end of next year. The discussion, he added, "has got to be always conditioned by the fact that we withdraw when the job is done."
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Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, who leads the British Army, told the BBC that a British departure by the end of 2006 was "well within the range of what is realistically possible."
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He said that he was "quite encouraged" by a visit last month to Iraq and that he found the political achievements there "in some ways quite remarkable."
October, 2006 - The Telegraph:
British to evacuate consulate in Basra after mortar attacks
The British consulate in Basra will evacuate its heavily defended building in the next 24 hours over concerns for the safety of its staff.
Despite a large British military presence at the headquarters in Basra Palace, a private security assessment has advised the consul general and her staff to leave the building after experiencing regular mortar attacks in the last two months.
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The palace, which is surrounded by a 30ft blast wall and graced with manicured lawns, is in the same fortified compound as 800 British infantry.
July, 2007 - The New York Times:
British Pullback in Iraq Presages Hurdles for U.S.
BASRA, Iraq — As American troop levels are peaking in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction as the troops prepare to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra, 300 miles to the south.
The British intend to pull back to an airport headquarters miles out of town, a symbolic move widely taken by Iraqis as the beginning of the end of the British military presence in southern Iraq.
The scaling down by America’s largest coalition partner foreshadows many of the political and military challenges certain to face American commanders when their troops begin withdrawing.
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Since the 2003 invasion, the British-led coalition forces have adopted a far less aggressive and interventionist stance than American troops have farther north.
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In such an environment, say British commanders, removing the troops from the city center takes away a “magnet” for attacks, and deprives the Mahdi Army, led by Moktada al-Sadr, and other Iranian-backed militias of a cause to justify their continued violence. Instead there will be a transition to control by Iraqis.
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“A Baghdad-style surge would be 100 percent counterproductive,” he added.
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At Basra Palace, the rocket attacks at all hours of the day and night have led soldiers to christen it, with characteristic dark humor, “probably the worst palace in the world.”
August, 2007 - The Washington Post:
In the early years of Iraq's occupation, British officials often disdained the U.S. use of armored patrols and heavily protected troops. The British approach of lightly armed foot patrols -- copied from counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland -- sought to avoid antagonizing the local population and encourage cooperation. A 2005 report by the defense committee of the House of Commons commended the British army's performance and urged the Ministry of Defense to "use its influence" to get the Americans to take a less aggressive approach.
September, 2007 - Simon Henderson, The Washington Institute:
Leaving Basra City: Britain's Withdrawal from Iraq
On September 3, 550 British troops evacuated one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Basra via the Shatt al-Arab waterway, retreating to Basra airport, the last British base in Iraq. Britain remains responsible for security in the city and for the major supply route from Kuwait, fifty miles to the south. But there is an increasing presumption that British forces will soon withdraw completely, and that U.S. forces will have to replace them.
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On the ground, British forces appear to have little enthusiasm left for any role in Iraq. Lt. Col. Patrick Sanders, commander of the forces that left Basra palace, told the Independent, "I could have stayed on there for another six months, we would have been able to defend ourselves, and killed a lot of people in the process, but what would that have achieved?"
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Immediately before the redeployment, former British army head Gen. Sir Mike Jackson launched a scathing attack on the American handling of postwar Iraq. Describing the approach taken by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "intellectually bankrupt"
October, 2007 - The Telegraph:
Message from Basra: 'get us out of here'
Gethin Chamberlain in Basra is given a simple and stark message from a senior British officer in Iraq: 'We have got it wrong'
It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British officer in the four and a half years since the tanks rolled over the Iraqi border. The British Army, said the man sitting in a prefab hut in Britain's last base in the country, were tired of fighting.
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Rather than fight on, they have struck a deal – or accommodation, as they describe it – with the Shia militias that dominate the city, promising to stay out in return for assurances that they will not be attacked. Since withdrawing, the British have not set foot in the city and even have to ask for permission if they want to skirt the edges to get to the Iranian border on the other side.
March, 2008 - Defense News/Agence France-Presse:
"U.S. and Iraqi forces are involved in a huge operation to attack an Al-Qaeda stronghold in Mosul.
"But after that, the plan is to turn the coalition's attention on to Basra and we will be urging the British to surge into the city.
"If they do not have enough troops, then they will be offered U.S .Marines to help out.
"The feeling is that if southern Iraq is hugely unstable, it will affect the success of the surge in the north and destabilize the whole country."
The source added: "The proposal to go back into Basra is being examined at the highest level in Baghdad."
U.S. military commanders say that a "surge" of 30,000 U.S. troops since last January is partly responsible for a dip in violence in Iraq.
But unnamed senior British civil service sources told the Sunday Mirror that Britain would be highly reluctant to go back into Basra because of pressure at home to pull troops out.
"We do not have enough troops for a surge ourselves. The hope is that we can train enough Iraqi army recruits in the next year to cope with the inter-tribal warfare going on in Basra," one source quoted by the paper said.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said British forces were giving "important support" to Iraqi forces in the Basra area but "retain the ability to re-intervene on the ground, in the unlikely event of such a request from the Iraqis."
The spokesman added: "We have regular discussions with our coalition partners and the Iraqi government, and they support our approach."
March 25, 2008 - Associated Press:
Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militias in the southern oil port of Basra on Tuesday as a security plan to clamp down on violence between rival militia factions in the region began.
With tensions rising, Muqtada al-Sadr's headquarters in Najaf ordered field commanders with his Mahdi Army militia to go on high alert and prepare "to strike the occupiers" and their Iraqi allies, a militia officer said.
The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't supposed to release the information, also said the movement had ordered its supporters to join a civil disobedience campaign nationwide.
April 16, 2008 - Xinhua:
Coalition air strikes kill four gunmen in Iraq's Basra
Coalition air strikes hit insurgents' positions in Iraq's southern city of Basra early Wednesday, killing four gunmen and wounding another, a coalition spokesman said.
"A coalition aircraft conducted an air strike on a group of gunmen who were firing rocket propelled grenades on Iraqi security forces in Basra's western neighborhood of Haiyyania at about 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT on Tuesday)," Captain Chris Ford, spokesman of the Multi National Forces in Basra, told Xinhua.
The attack killed four insurgents and wounded a fifth, Ford added.
According to the spokesman, another coalition aircraft struck a vehicle in the same neighborhood, but the casualties were unclear.
A source from Sadr office in the Haiyyania neighborhood confirmed the second attack, saying an Apache helicopter fired a missile on a civilian car carrying several gunmen of Mahdi Army militia, loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
April 20, 2008 - Associated Press:
Secretary of State Rice Mocks Muslim Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a Coward
BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.
Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying.
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"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."
April 25, 2008 - The London Times:
Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again.
All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military. The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes.
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For the first time in four years local residents have been emboldened to stand up to the militants and are turning in caches of weapons. Army checkpoints have been erected across Basra and traffic police are also out in force.
The security forces have also torn down many banners supporting al-Mahdi Army as well as portraits of its leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, though some still remain in militia strongholds.
August, 2008 - The London Times:
Secret deal kept British Army out of battle for Basra
A secret deal between Britain and the notorious al-Mahdi militia prevented British Forces from coming to the aid of their US and Iraqi allies for nearly a week during the battle for Basra this year, The Times has learnt.
Four thousand British troops – including elements of the SAS and an entire mechanised brigade – watched from the sidelines for six days because of an “accommodation” with the Iranian-backed group, according to American and Iraqi officers who took part in the assault.
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Under its terms, no British soldier could enter Basra without the permission of Des Browne, the Defence Secretary. By the time he gave his approval, most of the fighting was over and the damage to Britain’s reputation had already been done.
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The Americans responded by flying in reinforcements, providing air cover and offering the logistical and other support needed for the Iraqis to win.
The British were partly handicapped because their commander, Major-General Barney White-Spunner, was away on a skiing holiday when the attack began.
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“You can accuse the Americans of many things, such as hamfistedness, but you can’t accuse them of not addressing a situation when it arises. While we had a strategy of evasion, the Americans just went in and addressed the problem.”
The full version is here.
All done!
