Posted on 05/07/2006 6:14:11 PM PDT by blam
Mobs cheer British deaths as Basra slips out of control
By Oliver Poole, Iraq Correspondent
(Filed: 08/05/2006)
It took the soldiers from 1 Bn Light Infantry all the night and most of yesterday to remove the wreckage of the Lynx helicopter that came down in Basra at the weekend, killing five British servicemen on board.
As they used heavy lifting equipment to separate twisted metal from the debris of a house that the aircraft had crashed into, military experts were trying to establish whether the crash was caused by mechanical failure or hostile fire.
British officers believe the most likely cause was a lucky shot with a rocket-propelled grenade.
But one thing is already clear: Basra is slipping out of the control of British forces.
Saturday's televised pictures of a local mob cheering the deaths, pelting British soldiers with stones and hurling petrol bombs at their armoured vehicles belie the Government's assurances that the political situation in Iraq - and particularly in the British sector - is steadily improving.
Soldiers on the ground have long known that the reality is grim. They regard many of Basra's elected leaders as crooks at best and agents of Iran at worst.
The Shia militias that operate in the area do so with near impunity; good policemen are too frightened to confront them while the secular middle class now either dresses its women in headscarves or has moved abroad.
The tragedy is that the British have been unwilling - or unable - to stop this. With London terrified of the political effect of casualties, the Army has been forced to adopt a policy of appeasement to those they know are behind many of the worst outrages.
Yesterday Des Browne, the new Secretary of Defence, called for Saturday's events to be seen in context. It involved, he stressed, only a few hundred people in a city of more than one million.
The trouble is that the minority throwing petrol bombs at British soldiers are the ones who are taking control of Basra. They already have a powerful foothold in the provincial government and the police force, and have the power of the gun on the streets.
The wider context that Mr Browne ignores is that Iraq is collapsing. In another day of violence yesterday, car bombs killed at least 16 people in Baghdad and the Shia holy city of Kerbala, while dozens more bodies were found dead.
Amid the blood-letting, Iraq is splitting into three parts: an Islamist Shia south, a bitterly anti-American Sunni west and a Kurdish north where the vast majority long for independence.
The fault line is Baghdad with its intermeshed sectarian neighbourhoods. Basra is emerging as the capital of a new Shia "state". Several Shia militias are vying with each other for power.
British forces are the only moderating force left. But over the coming months they will be withdrawn, leaving the armed gangs, including the one led by the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, to fight it out for supremacy.
Not even the most optimistic intelligence assessment believes that Iraqi security forces will be strong enough to combat the fanatics.
Major Toby Christie, the British intelligence officer for Basra city, was resigned to the "flag-waving" that would accompany Britain's departure.
"Those people who actively worked against us will be able to play the nationalist card and hold themselves up as the heroes," he said. "There are no moderate leaders here. We will not be leaving behind a Westernised theocracy - and there will be a certain amount of killing once we go."
I recently asked Iraqi friends what would happen when the British leave. They laughed. "It will be the law of the jungle," said one.
I wouldn't get too cocky. They've kep the peace there pretty well. They are bloody experienced in using the military in urban zones far beyond US experience - they had all the bloody mistakes and savageries of Northern Ireland for the last 30 years and they took them on board. I'd rate them as the best Western army for using military forces in urban zones...mind you, that should always be the last resport anyway
I don't know how big the base is....but there is an American sector from what I've been told..
Five years isn't long at all. But we haven't been in Iraq five years, anyway...just fighting the War on Terror that long.
If somebody made mistakes especially in the British sector, address that, not the length of time. Postwar Germany was a mess for years after World War II. The NYT wrote articles about how it all was to h*ll in a handbasket.
Also, don't give too much credit to this puke "journalist" from the defeatist, antiAmerican, antiBush Socialist country of Britain.
***One FReeper's Opinion***
No matter it's size, doesn't sound like it has very much to do with local security if that is so bad there and the Brits are in charge of that sector of Iraq.
Our forces from just south of Baghdad and on north and west to the Syrian border have a very different approach from the Brits.
It is aggressive, works closely with Iraqi forces and has a plan such as to nab Zarqawi and all his ilk. It has a plan to win the people of that area and set up the Iraqi forces to do the same, only even more so because they ARE Iraqi, after all.
Make that the opionion of at least two Freepers.
I think the Left beat us again.
I meant our WOT and Iraq....more or less
from my stateside perspective and the sofar lack of more attacks here in US, the WOT seems ok
Iraq less so ...not because of our folks over there...just a suicidal foe
like most terr fighters from the eons past, they don't have to win....just not lose (I think Giap said that)
and now Iran ...which may be technically more dangerous than Iraq....and we invaded Iraq figuring Saddam wanted or had nukes...now we know Iran has them
what to do?
I'm not drawing conclusions but in Vietnam we refused to fight total war against an enemy who had no such qualms.
It feels like deja vu all over again...sorta
Sherman had no compunction using total war against my kinfolks, we did it in WWII to the Japs and Germans...so why not now?
My take is the whole "Army as Urban Police Force" is a total failure. The "New Age" war that everyone from Powell, to Kristol to Condalezza to Rumsfeld want to fight isn't working and won't work.
The way to build a united, peaceful Iraq was to shred them totally. Look at the percentage of German young men killed in WW2. 3.5 million military dead takes the fight out of even angry "moslem youth". This is a pre-requisite for real peace. Look at the dead, on both sides, in the American Civil War. Look at the Japanese dead, including the 80,000 civilians in the two bomb drops.
Sad to say but much more killing was needed. We didn't need to be friends. We needed to be masters. We can be friends with their children or grandchildren, like Japan and Germany. The current generation needs to fear us in their bones, and suffer to the point of complete exhaustion and capitulation. People like Sadr, Sistani and any one else with dreams of power should have been made to exercise some of that deep bowing they are so proficient at the feet of a real American general with blood on his hands.
There is nothing new under the sun. The neos are simply a variation of the "end of History" guys who think they are so clever everything is new. It is not.
Maybe because the Islamofascists have oil.
The Brits are not about to pull a Falluja in Basra. This was an amazing operation that earned the respect of the radicals who do not want a repeat. This is the one thing these people understand.
Iran doesn't have nukes yet.....but they are trying....
If they get REALLY nuts and use them, then some on FR will get their wish and we will nuke them back.
The only concept they understand and respect is the power of brute force.
I doubt the administration has the will to do what has to be done...
Yet, if we wish to halt the game as it is currently being played, pure, unembellished brute force must be unfurled. No quarter. Make the Israelis look like gentle lambs. We have utterly failed to bring to heal the islamic dog... and it is sheer fear, which ultimately leads to the kind or "respect" that is needed to end the hostilities.
Unfortunately, the will to do what is needed, is totally lacking. Our fear of World Opinion negates such action... and that my FRiend, means a satisfactory conclusion is but an illusion...
Not all Muslims are nutjobs - but the majority of them are.
And regardless of their personal attributes, their religion is a cult of fear, intolerance, bigottry and hate.
Ask ANY non-Muslim who lives in or has lived in a Muslim country.
They even kill their own.
Have a couple of platoons of expert riflemen with the very latest cutting edge weaponry...set a trap/ambush.
Crash a drone into the neighborhood where our guys are set up and you can eliminate a whole lot of those three hundred problem people.
They come out to dance, make them dance.
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