Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
August 7, 2008
Pg. 12
By John F. Burns
LONDON — More than four months after American troops were moved hundreds of miles across Iraq to help save a faltering Iraqi Army offensive against Shiite militias in the southern oil city of Basra, a political controversy has erupted here over Britain’s failure to promptly deploy its own troops, stationed only a few miles from the fighting.
British newspapers have made much of the dismay that the delayed British entry into the Basra fighting caused among American commanders, who committed nearly 1,000 soldiers to the fighting. Many of the Americans were moved from bases in central Iraq, the first time United States troops had been committed to combat in the southernmost area of the country since British troops took control of the area after the 2003 invasion, leaving central and northern Iraq to the much larger American force.
The charges come as Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a widening challenge to his leadership within the governing Labor Party, less than 14 months after he succeeded Tony Blair.
Eager to distance himself from a war that hastened Mr. Blair’s downfall, Mr. Brown pledged last fall to halve British troops in Iraq this year. He pulled the British garrison out of the heart of Basra in September, and began a drawdown that left the bulk of the remaining force of about 4,100 troops at a base at the Basra airport, about 10 miles from the city center. But the fighting in the city in March caused him to scrap plans to reduce the British force to 2,500 this year, and the latest government plan, outlined last month, is to aim for substantial cutbacks in 2009.
British military experts say Mr. Brown’s shifting signals have left the British force in Iraq in a no man’s land, still committed in significant numbers but having limited effect because of a determination to limit British casualties. This ambivalence, these experts say, contributed to the confusion in which British troops delayed for six days joining the battle over Basra in March.
The result, as one British military expert with extended experience in Iraq put it, was that British forces stood by for several days while American troops helped Iraqi units regain control of a city that Britain, responsible for the city for nearly five years, had effectively abandoned only six months before.
Some of the debate in Britain has centered on a secret deal that Britain’s commanders have acknowledged reaching with the Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army to assure a casualty-free pullout from the Basra Palace base beside the Shatt al Arab waterway in the heart of the city last September. The deal, these officers have said, involved releasing from British custody Ahmed al-Fartusi, a senior Mahdi Army commander, and 120 other militia members, in return for a promise that the retreating British troops would not be attacked.
The overnight pullout went off without bloodshed, though at least some British officers have described it as shameful. One newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, published a weekend interview in which Col. Richard Iron, who leads British teams mentoring Iraqi Army units in Basra, described the deal as “understandable but inexcusable,” because it strengthened the Mahdi Army’s ability to take control of much of Basra as the British withdrew, and, the colonel said, compounded the “terrible mistakes” British forces made in tolerating Shiite militias throughout their years in southern Iraq.
The Times of London, in a front-page article on Monday by the paper’s defense editor, Michael Evans, said the September deal had prevented British commanders from sending troops back into the city during the Iraqi-led offensive in March. The paper said an armored brigade and special forces units based at the airport “watched from the sidelines for six days” until Britain’s defense secretary, Desmond Browne, gave approval to join the fighting. The first American troops were committed to the battle within 48 hours.
The Defense Ministry in London reacted vigorously to the article, saying in a statement that while British forces had “always been prepared to talk to anyone who wishes to renounce violence,” there had been “no ‘deals’ with militias that kept us out of the city.” British military experts said the statement appeared to have been crafted in a way that acknowledged, by inference, that a pact had covered the pullout in September, but denied that the terms of the agreement limited British military action in March.
When they joined the fighting, the ministry said, British forces “provided the assistance that Iraqi authorities sought from us, including armor, artillery, airpower, medical and logistic support.” But only a month after the Basra fighting ended, an open letter to British troops in Iraq from the country’s overall army commander, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, acknowledged, at least implicitly, the frustration that the delay in entering the battle had caused among British troops. “I cannot deny that there are many who said that they would rather be at the forefront of the operations,” he said.
American commanders have withheld public criticism of the British actions, and have said, when speaking not for publication, that they sympathize with the political problems Mr. Brown faces, because opinion polls indicate strong British opposition to the war within both his own party and the British electorate.
But the March events have sown ill feeling that has been rare between the militaries. One British expert on Iraq who has advised Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, described the chill he encountered among American officers and civilian officials in Baghdad after the Basra offensive. He asked that his name be withheld in exchange for candor in discussing a sensitive topic.
“Having a British passport was a bonus” for advisers visiting Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace, the American command center in Baghdad, at earlier stages of the war, he said. “But when I went back in March, it was a distinct disadvantage. There was a strong air of disillusionment.”
August 7, 2008
Pg. 12
By John F. Burns
LONDON — More than four months after American troops were moved hundreds of miles across Iraq to help save a faltering Iraqi Army offensive against Shiite militias in the southern oil city of Basra, a political controversy has erupted here over Britain’s failure to promptly deploy its own troops, stationed only a few miles from the fighting.
British newspapers have made much of the dismay that the delayed British entry into the Basra fighting caused among American commanders, who committed nearly 1,000 soldiers to the fighting. Many of the Americans were moved from bases in central Iraq, the first time United States troops had been committed to combat in the southernmost area of the country since British troops took control of the area after the 2003 invasion, leaving central and northern Iraq to the much larger American force.
The charges come as Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a widening challenge to his leadership within the governing Labor Party, less than 14 months after he succeeded Tony Blair.
Eager to distance himself from a war that hastened Mr. Blair’s downfall, Mr. Brown pledged last fall to halve British troops in Iraq this year. He pulled the British garrison out of the heart of Basra in September, and began a drawdown that left the bulk of the remaining force of about 4,100 troops at a base at the Basra airport, about 10 miles from the city center. But the fighting in the city in March caused him to scrap plans to reduce the British force to 2,500 this year, and the latest government plan, outlined last month, is to aim for substantial cutbacks in 2009.
British military experts say Mr. Brown’s shifting signals have left the British force in Iraq in a no man’s land, still committed in significant numbers but having limited effect because of a determination to limit British casualties. This ambivalence, these experts say, contributed to the confusion in which British troops delayed for six days joining the battle over Basra in March.
The result, as one British military expert with extended experience in Iraq put it, was that British forces stood by for several days while American troops helped Iraqi units regain control of a city that Britain, responsible for the city for nearly five years, had effectively abandoned only six months before.
Some of the debate in Britain has centered on a secret deal that Britain’s commanders have acknowledged reaching with the Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army to assure a casualty-free pullout from the Basra Palace base beside the Shatt al Arab waterway in the heart of the city last September. The deal, these officers have said, involved releasing from British custody Ahmed al-Fartusi, a senior Mahdi Army commander, and 120 other militia members, in return for a promise that the retreating British troops would not be attacked.
The overnight pullout went off without bloodshed, though at least some British officers have described it as shameful. One newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, published a weekend interview in which Col. Richard Iron, who leads British teams mentoring Iraqi Army units in Basra, described the deal as “understandable but inexcusable,” because it strengthened the Mahdi Army’s ability to take control of much of Basra as the British withdrew, and, the colonel said, compounded the “terrible mistakes” British forces made in tolerating Shiite militias throughout their years in southern Iraq.
The Times of London, in a front-page article on Monday by the paper’s defense editor, Michael Evans, said the September deal had prevented British commanders from sending troops back into the city during the Iraqi-led offensive in March. The paper said an armored brigade and special forces units based at the airport “watched from the sidelines for six days” until Britain’s defense secretary, Desmond Browne, gave approval to join the fighting. The first American troops were committed to the battle within 48 hours.
The Defense Ministry in London reacted vigorously to the article, saying in a statement that while British forces had “always been prepared to talk to anyone who wishes to renounce violence,” there had been “no ‘deals’ with militias that kept us out of the city.” British military experts said the statement appeared to have been crafted in a way that acknowledged, by inference, that a pact had covered the pullout in September, but denied that the terms of the agreement limited British military action in March.
When they joined the fighting, the ministry said, British forces “provided the assistance that Iraqi authorities sought from us, including armor, artillery, airpower, medical and logistic support.” But only a month after the Basra fighting ended, an open letter to British troops in Iraq from the country’s overall army commander, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, acknowledged, at least implicitly, the frustration that the delay in entering the battle had caused among British troops. “I cannot deny that there are many who said that they would rather be at the forefront of the operations,” he said.
American commanders have withheld public criticism of the British actions, and have said, when speaking not for publication, that they sympathize with the political problems Mr. Brown faces, because opinion polls indicate strong British opposition to the war within both his own party and the British electorate.
But the March events have sown ill feeling that has been rare between the militaries. One British expert on Iraq who has advised Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, described the chill he encountered among American officers and civilian officials in Baghdad after the Basra offensive. He asked that his name be withheld in exchange for candor in discussing a sensitive topic.
“Having a British passport was a bonus” for advisers visiting Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace, the American command center in Baghdad, at earlier stages of the war, he said. “But when I went back in March, it was a distinct disadvantage. There was a strong air of disillusionment.”