[NYTr] Kicked Out: Failed Brit occupation of Basra ends

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Time to go... the Brits used to say (finally) of their military
occupation of the northrn 6 counties of Ireland. Well, ikt's still time
to go, from somewhere else, this time.]

The Independent - Sep 3, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2921877.ece

Ignominious end to futile exercise that cost the UK 168 lives

by Patrick Cockburn 

The withdrawal of British forces from Basra Palace, ahead of an expected
full withdrawal from the city as early as next month, marks the
beginning of the end of one of the most futile campaigns ever fought by
the British Army.

Ostensibly, the British will be handing over control of Basra to Iraqi
security forces. In reality, British soldiers control very little in
Basra, and the Iraqi security forces are largely run by the Shia
militias.

The British failure is almost total after four years of effort and the
death of 168 personnel. "Basra's residents and militiamen view this not
as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat," says a
report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Today, the
city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and
unconstrained than before."

The British military presence has been very limited since April this
year, when Operation Sinbad, vaunted by the Ministry of Defence as a
comparative success, ended. In the last four months the escalating
attacks on British forces have shown the operation failed in its aim to
curb the power of the militias.

The pullout will be a jolt for the US because it undermines its claim
that it is at last making progress in establishing order in Iraq
because Sunni tribes have turned against al-Qa'ida and because of its
employment of more sophisticated tactics. In practice, the US controls
very little of the nine Shia provinces south of Baghdad.

The British Army was never likely to be successful in southern Iraq in
terms of establishing law and order under the control of the government
in Baghdad. Claims that the British military could draw on
counter-insurgency experience built up in Northern Ireland never made
sense.

In Northern Ireland it had the support of the majority Protestant
population. In Basra and the other three provinces where it was in
command in southern Iraq the British forces had no reliable local
allies.

The criticism of the lack of American preparation for the occupation by
Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the British Army, and Maj Gen Tim
Ross, the most senior British officer in post-war planning, rather
misses the point. Most Iraqis were glad to get rid of Saddam Hussein,
but the majority opposed a post-war occupation. If the Americans and
British had withdrawn immediately in April 2003 then there would have
been no guerrilla war.

The US has held most power while officially supporting the Iraqi
government because it did not want Saddam Hussein replaced by Shia
religious parties with close ties to Iran. Given that Shia are 60 per
cent of the Iraqi population this is probably inevitable.

Soon after the British arrival, on 24 June 2003, British troops learnt a
bloody lesson about the limits of their authority when six military
policemen were trapped in a police headquarters between Basra and
al-Amara. I visited the grim little building where they had died a day
later. Armed men were still milling around outside. A tribesman working
for a leader who was supposedly on the British side, said: "We are just
waiting for our religious leaders to issue a fatwa against the
occupation and then we will fight. If we give up our weapons how can we
fight them?"

The British line was that there were "rogue" policemen and, once they
were eliminated, the Iraqi security forces would take command. In fact,
the political parties and their mafia-like militias always controlled
the institutions. When a young American reporter living in Basra
bravely pointed this out in a comment article he was promptly murdered
by the police. One militia leader was quoted as saying: "80 per cent of
assassinations in 2006 were committed by individuals wearing police
uniforms, carrying police guns and using police cars."

Could any of this have been avoided? At an early stage, when the
British had a large measure of control, there was a plan to discipline
the militias by putting them in uniform. This idea of turning poachers
into gamekeepers simply corrupted the police.

The violence in Basra is not primarily against the occupation or over
sectarian differences (the small Sunni minority has largely been driven
out). The fighting has been and will be over local resources.

The fragile balance of power is dominated by three groups: Fadhila,
which controls the Oil Protection Force; the Supreme Islamic Iraqi
Council, which dominates the intelligence service and police commando
units, and The Mehdi Army, which runs much of the local police force,
port authority and the Facilities Protection Force. One Iraqi truck
driver said he had to bribe three different militia units stationed
within a few kilometres of each other in order to proceed.

In terms of establishing an orderly government in Basra and a decent
life for its people the British failure has been absolute.