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| Iraq | ||
| British forces useless in Basra, say officials | ||
| 2007-08-19 | ||
| When America's top commanders in Iraq held a conference with their British counterparts recently, Major General Jonathan Shaw - Britain's senior officer in Basra - was quick to share his views on how best to conduct counter-insurgency operations. For much of the last four years, the Americans in the room would have listened carefully, used to deferring to their British colleagues' long experience in Northern Ireland. This time, however, eyes that would once have been attentive simply rolled. Few were in the mood for a lecture about British superiority, when they fear that Downing Street's planned pull-out from Basra will squander any progress from their own hard-fought "troop surge" strategy elsewhere. "It's insufferable for Christ's sake," said one senior figure closely involved in US military planning. "He comes on and he lectures everybody in the room about how to do a counter-insurgency. The guys were just rolling their eyeballs. The notorious Northern Ireland came up again. It's pretty frustrating. It would be okay if he was best in class, but now he's worst in class. Everybody else's area is getting better and his is getting worse." The meeting, called by General David Petraeus, the senior US officer who has the task of managing the surge, is emblematic of what is fast becoming a minor crisis in Anglo-American military relations. In Britain, Gordon Brown's government has tried to depict a quiet process of handover to Iraqi troops in Basra, which will see the remaining forces in the city withdraw to the airport in November. What US generals see, however, is a close ally preparing to "cut and run", leaving behind a city in the grip of a power struggle between Shia militias that could determine the fate of the Iraqi government and the country as a whole. With signs of the surge yielding tentative progress in Baghdad, but at the cost of many American lives, there could scarcely be a worse time for a parting of the ways. Yet the US military has no doubt, despite what Gordon Brown claims, that the pullout is being driven by "the political situation at home in the UK".
"They did not have enough troops there even before they started cutting back. The situation is beyond their control. "Quite frankly what they're doing right now is not any value-added. They're just sitting there. They're not involved. The situation there gets worse by the day. Americans are disappointed because, in their minds, this thing is still winnable. They don't intend to cut and run." The officer predicted that the affair could have long-lasting implications. "There will be a stink about this that will hang around the British military," he said. One US official said that recent US military intelligence reports sent to the White House had concluded that Britain had "lost" Basra, and that Pentagon war games were predicting a virtual civil war in the South once British troops left. He said: "When the White House makes the case for continuing the surge on the Hill they will say: 'Look what happened in Basra when the Brits went back to their barracks. We can't pull out now. Give us more time to get it right'." He added that White House officials had expected Mr Brown to strike a different tone on Iraq to that of Tony Blair, but that they were disappointed not to win a firmer agreement to keep British troops in place. "They don't mind a change in rhetoric, but the bottom line for the president was to keep Basra as a British responsibility. He didn't get as much as he wanted. There was a whiff of double dealing about it all." As The Sunday Telegraph revealed last week, plans have been drawn up to send thousands of American troops into southern Iraq to take over the supervision of the vital supply route north from Kuwait, a task the British will bequeath when they leave. But the senior US officer warned that combat troops may also have to go into Basra itself to "protect the population" from violence between its numerous warring Shia militias - an extra burden as perilous as any in Baghdad. US Marine Colonel Gary Anderson, who has conducted recent Iraq war games for the Pentagon, said the situation Britain would leave behind in Basra "could be the most bloody part of the transition". He said: "The primary issue in Basra will be a struggle between various Shia factions for control of the region, and frankly the regular government in Baghdad as well. It will be between pro-Iranian factions and those that are more nationalistic. It's going to be nasty."
Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, added: "Basra is a mess, and the exit strategy attempted there has failed. It is, for the purposes of future Iraq policymaking, an example of what not to do. "Basra has gone far towards revising the common American image of British soldiers as perhaps the world's best at counter-insurgency." | ||
| Posted by:lotp |
| #19 Man, It must be a bi*** to try to due your job, while your brow sweats to the thought that a shiny 'crescent' missile is pointed at you from over your shoulder. |
| Posted by: smn 2007-08-19 20:42 |
| #18 #17 Cause you listen to your father respectfully---even if he's f*cking senile. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-08-19 18:49 |
| #17 Why the hell would the US military listen to the British military for COIN, if Northern Ireland is supposed to be their big "win"? The goddamned IRA WON! The Sein Fein is a LEGAL political party in NI, and is sharing power with the Protestants. The Sein Fein IS the IRA - just its more presentable political face. How is that a "win" for the British forces? |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2007-08-19 16:36 |
| #16 Why be hard on the British? It's not their war. It's wasn't their premier city center that was destroyed by muslims. How many Ameicans fought on the British side the last time British territory was invaded? The question is why waste so many resources and treat with such gentleness those who are indoctrinated to from birth to kill or enslave us and destroy our civilization? Those who think of us as pigs and monkeys and rape is an instrument of their civilizational advancement. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-08-19 16:20 |
| #15 Real Generals thinker of logistics Amateurs thinker of tactics. Kinder Kz think of weapons. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-19 12:51 |
| #14 Enhance Radiation Weapons. Another Carter gift that keeps on giving. Like Breeder Reactors. Our first Nuculer president. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-08-19 12:48 |
| #13 Details, minor details that can be fixed with larger ordinance and proper 'elan. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-19 12:48 |
| #12 And, there's the supply line issue. The Basra area is our port of entry for a lot of material, equipment and troops. Not the place where you want to irradiate or destroy docks, highways and bridges wholesale. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-08-19 12:35 |
| #11 AC-130 Daisy Cutter MOAB Nuke Is there any cliche too good for them? |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-19 12:32 |
| #10 So gentlemen, how many USA units do you figure it will take to "fix" Basra? None: one daisy cutter ought to do it. Forget about the hearts and minds crap -- these swine have neither. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2007-08-19 10:46 |
| #9 British forces useless in Basra, say officials And the downside in Basra is? Damn those Brit Politicians, playing Army and Navy from London.. We need Allies that are cutting and running like we need Congress trying to emulate Downing Street & Whitehall.... IIRC Originally The Brits were knocked back on their ears, but eventually kicked some Basra butt, but then they quit too early, pulled way back into "Fort Basra Mode" and never fully regained leverage over the Badr Brigade, run by Hadi Al-Amiri and Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, deadly Shiite actors working with Iran and their rivals Muqtada al Sadr & the Mahdi Army and a few Sunni enclaves. The Brits never acquired leverage over "The Al-Quds Force" which trains Iraqi militants in manufacturing improved explosive devices and finances and organises pro-Iranian militias in Iraq," noted the the British Ahwazi Friendship Society report. "According to SPC, the Iraq network is under the command of Jamal Jaafar Mohammad Ali Ebrahimi, who is also known as Mehdi Mohandes." Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, Iranian run Sheibani and Qazali networks These are Shia terrorists which are trained, armed, funded and directed by Iran's Qods Force, and have connections to Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sheibani networks So gentlemen, how many USA units do you figure it will take to "fix" Basra? |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2007-08-19 09:55 |
| #8 The Brits were always stressed down in Basra, and while "just holding down the fort" was enough for most of it, there was little else they had the numbers and firepower to do. Hopefully, the situation will be settled enough elsewhere so that the US military can head down there in force to confront both the Shiite-on-Shiite action and the Iranian hanky-panky. But spare us from advise on northern Ireland. The US has performed ten times as many effective modern counterinsurgency operations on the four corners of the world as had Britain. When we move into Basra, we will do counterinsurgency the US way. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-08-19 09:32 |
| #7 yet another step towards total dependence of world civilization on the blood and character of a small volunteer segment of US society. Just so. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2007-08-19 09:12 |
| #6 Upside is, when US forces have to come in to clean up the mess, the "insurgents" who have been playing patty-cake with the brits will get a really rude surprise... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-08-19 08:52 |
| #5 Hey 2x4, let Iran try and rule these "people". |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-08-19 08:25 |
| #4 COIN requires all sorts of odd approaches to prove you can eat soup with a spoon :) |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-19 08:08 |
| #3 Never thought much of their approach down south. But note - many of its flaws are/were embraced by many US commanders as well. I put most of it down to an aversion to action, risk, responsibility - usually cloaked in some rationalization about how COIN requires all sorts of odd approaches to prove you can eat soup with a spoon. Nonsense. The "unconventional" parts of COIN are simply common sense - using bribes, favors, etc. when needed, and avoiding gratuitous damage to locals and non-combatants. It's pretty deep in the British officer class. Recall one former officer, a Sandhurst grad, seriously questioning the .50 cals on some of the convoy Humvees in Baghdad as "too big for an urban environment". Now, I myself wondered about the grenade launchers (Mk 14?) on some of the Humvees, but the .50 cal? As the primary job was to stop VBIEDs in their tracks, .50 cals were quite appropriate. I've probably mentioned it before but the morale of the officers in our office was horrible. Every last one was getting out, some early - budget, political environment, everything was discouraging. The unbelievable incident in the Gulf a while back (incl. the bits at MoD) may have been a stark symbol of how bad things are. Great shame, of course, as well as yet another step towards total dependence of world civilization on the blood and character of a small volunteer segment of US society. What were Churchill's famous words - "never have so many owed so much to so few" .... ?? |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-08-19 01:57 |
| #2 Besoeker, Iran is the downside. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-08-19 01:35 |
| #1 "could be the most bloody part of the transition". And the downside in Basra is? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-08-19 01:32 |