Run out of town - The truth behind the Basra "handover"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba1f1376-4f7e-11dc-b485-0000779fd2ac.html

Run out of town
By Stephen Fidler

Published: August 21 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 21 2007 03:00

In the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, British troops were regularly shown on UK television walking around Basra wearing berets. There was a sharp contrast with the way nervy, heavily protected US troops were throwing their weight around in Baghdad.

The message received by the British public was that this softly-softly approach would - thanks to experience in Northern Ireland and elsewhere - succeed in a peacekeeping mission where the Americans' heavy-handed tactics would fail.

It was a view held almost universally in the British army. "British military guys can be totally insufferable about this," says one retired US general who advises the Bush administration on Iraq.

The four provinces comprising the UK's sector in south-eastern Iraq were also regarded as relatively friendly. The Shia majority in the region had largely -welcomed the toppling ofSaddam Hussein's Sunni regime and British forces did not confront the Sunni insurgency faced by the Americans in central Iraq.

But the days of soft hats and handing sweets to children are now long gone. Casualties being suffered by UK troops in Iraq are now coming at a higher rate than at any time since the March 2003 invasion. UK troops are expected to pull out of Saddam's former palace in Basra, where a battlegroup of about 700 men has been under consistent fire, within weeks. The numbers of UK troops in Iraq will then fall from about 5,500 to 5,000, with a large majority of them based at just one location - Basra airport.

With such a small force, soldiers are being used essentially to protect themselves. Their objective, says Nick Clissitt, a retired brigadier who served in Iraq, appears to be largely to provide a symbolic show of support for Washington and the Iraqi government. "And that's pretty expensive and it's not sustainable," he says.

Funny our media never mentioned that when they reported the pull out.

Kind of important I think.

Don