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Let’s face it: Iraq has been nothing short of a British military humiliation
Andrew Gilligan18.12.08
IRAQ may have been a political disaster for both Britain and America but it has been a military humiliation only for Britain. As Gordon Brown announces yet another definitely, positively, indubitably final date for our pullout from Basra, I remembered Dorothy Parker's comment on the death of Calvin Coolidge, the worst US president of the past hundred years until George W Bush. "How could they tell?" she said.
How can we tell that the British are in Basra? They have spent most of the past 15 months bunkered at the airport, until recently seldom venturing outside at all. Their efforts over most of the preceding two years were confined to defending their own bases in the city, while trying to pretend they were "in control" of the anarchy that raged everywhere else.
Certainly, Basra is now at peace. Bombings and mortarings are no longer more common than traffic jams. The Mahdi Army militia swaggering through the place, enforcing headscarves on women and destroying video shops, have been driven out. The waterfront corniche is again full of strolling couples.
But none of this had anything to do with us. The turning-point, this spring, was a military offensive, Charge of the Knights, in which we took no part. The troops who expelled the militias and criminals tormenting the people of Basra were Iraqi and American. To the intense frustration of British troops - no cowards they - Britain stayed in its secure base in the outskirts, looking on.
Still not fully appreciated by the public, Charge of the Knights marked one of the lowest moments in the proud history of the British Army. What prompted the operation was the Iraqi government's horrified realisation that we had secretly signed what was effectively a surrender agreement with the Mahdi Army to turn Basra over to them, in return for a promise that they would stop attacking us. Part of the agreement was that British troops would no longer enter the city.
So Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, ordered in his own troops (deliberately keeping the British in the dark until the last minute) to take Basra back. At first, it was a rout but then Iraq's crack 1st Division, American-trained, was sent in from Baghdad, backed by 800 US soldiers and marines also from the centre of the country, and they prevailed. Britain, held back by London and constrained by its surrender agreement, barely lifted a finger to help.
Senior British officers began the Iraq occupation talking smugly of their long experience in counter-insurgency. We understand the natives, they would say - unlike those brutal, clumsy Americans. Well, the Americans were appallingly brutal and clumsy, to begin with but they learned, and they changed. And unlike us, they didn't give up.
The best strategy would, of course, have been never to have invaded in the first place. But we did invade - and much though we might feel that Iraq is not worth a single British life, we had, as a result, a certain duty to the place. Having smashed up the country and gone in without a post-war plan, the US is finally managing to undo at least some of the damage it caused. Baghdad, too, is much more peaceful these days. Washington has a plan now, and it was prepared to take the casualties, and commit enough troops to make a difference.
Britain, by contrast, was never prepared to accept responsibility for the mess it helped make.
Because of the shabby way the war was sold to us, our tolerance for troop increases and casualties afterwards was close to nil. Our unlucky forces, hopelessly outnumbered, suicidally ill-equipped, were reduced to the role of multinational fig-leaves to preserve the appearance of a "coalition", face-savers for the Government and target practice for the militia.
Even in the announcement of its end, Britain's Iraq deployment continues to be more political than military. The troops provided a useful human shield for yesterday's very bad unemployment figures. And I cannot help remembering another of Mr Brown's visits to Basra was made as he contemplated an election: could this be a page from the same playbook?
Western troops will still be needed in Basra - but they will be American. Contrary to Mr Brown's claim, no "task" has been "done". The only thing that has changed is the government in Washington, which has finally signalled its willingness to unclip our dog-lead.
Why does any of it matter, you may ask, apart from the small question of the 178 British lives lost to this exercise in futility? It's over. But of course it's not. We face some, though not all, of the same difficulties in Afghanistan.
The mission is equally ill-defined. The vulnerable, under-equipped troops, too few in number, slowly picked off by an apparently little-damaged enemy, are the same, as is the failure of efforts at "reconstruction". Similar, too, the delusional bullishness of the British military and diplomatic establishment, changing over the past year into a shell-shocked acceptance of the impossibility of the task with the resources at hand.
Above all, our essential irrelevance is the same in a war which will, in the coming months, again come to be dominated by America. I'm more pessimistic about the prospects for President-elect Obama's forthcoming "surge" in Afghanistan than the one in Iraq; Afghanistan has chewed up all previous foreign armies, big or small.
But we can no longer dismiss the Americans' chances: they have been working hard to retool their forces in counter-insurgency for an age of terror, even as we have done the opposite, spending too much on high-tech kit and starving our infantry of basic protection.
It isn't just the Iraqi government that regards Britain with near-contempt. Ironically, a war that was supposed to cement the "special relationship" has only harmed it. Basra cost us a great deal of respect in American military and defence circles.
Though the chief of the defence staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, writes today that our forces leave Iraq "with their heads held high and their reputation intact", and Brown said yesterday that British troops are "the best in the world", their very need to say these things may show that they are no longer quite true.
That, as much as anything else, is why we so badly need the long-promised inquiry into our involvement in Iraq: not just to punish the guilty, some of whom are still in office but also to learn the military lessons, take the actions that will restore the reputation of British forces, and stop them being humiliated, in Afghanistan, all over again.
Reader views (17)
I heard a British general based near Basra. He was trying to put such a gloss on the current farce, he sounded like a politicized civil servant or police commissioner. Our troops should be pulled out before the year ends.
Hopefully the British public will be rewarded with an inquiry into the lies behind the invasion, when this dishonest Government finally gets the boot. Personally I would like to see Tony Blair on trial at The Hague.
- Harry H, London UK
And never forget Michael Howards words when he was leader of the tory party at that time. [The conservatives will support the war regardless of the outcome of the vote at the United Nations} As indeed did David Cameron and his chums.
- James Hennessy, london england
The broader point on our involvement in policing the world is that we have long since been in a position to justify such arrogance. Suez was presumed to be our last world power moment until Blair fell politically for GWB. We are a bankrupt country of 60 million, led by donkeys. We cannot control entry into and defend our own country, let alone bring stability to the middle east. The fact that the posturing EU, led by France and Germany, has refused to be drawn into these adventures is indicative both of our folly and the caution of the other EU states on serious matters e.g.your young people being killed. It is a huge tragedy that we have hundreds of our best killed and maimed for nothing and as a further insult the party leaders expressing their condolences each week in parliament is quite sickening - pull them all out and let us start being a bigger version of Norway and Switzerland and stop pretending that we have any serious influence in the world any more..
- Tony Gee, London
You describe the Iraq disaster so accurately and I find it nauseating to see our troops being used,once again as props by our mendacious Prime Minister.
Misled and ill-equipped they were put in a hopeless situation by a hapless Labour Government.They and the country deserve a proper,honest and full enquiry into the Iraq misadventure,so that the truth behind our entry is finally revealed.
- Jon Dee, N Warks
Sadly the government use the armed forces at every opportunity to bolster their flagging public image with staged photo opportunities and carefully managed press releases to either distract us from what is going wrong or claim achievements well beyond what is actually being carried out. Claims proliferate of 'the first' or 'the biggest' (as in the logistic effort to get the generator convoy to the Kajaki dam - tell that to the 1991 Gulf war planners) under the guidance of new labour. I dare say that the forces are as sick of it as the public is.
- Peter Haldane, London
"Suppose Saddam Hussein had been left in power, pursuing his desire for weapons of mass destruction and the the occupation of Kuwait, and the destuction of Israel? What then?"
One of the few certainties to come out of the Iraq adventure is that while Saddam might have been a genuine threat in the early 1990s, he certainly wasn't a decade later: his nuclear programme had long been abandoned, his chemical weapons had decayed to the point where they were no longer viable, and any threat to his neighbours would have invited an instant military crackdown under extant UN resolutions.
Which was also perfectly clear in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, but Bush and Blair preferred the "evidence" of plagiarised decade-old student theses to hard facts being gathered on the ground.
In any case, do you seriously think that the situation now - a shattered Iraq riven with sectarian hatreds, a resurgent Iran and an Israel feeling even more beseiged than ever - is an improvement on five years ago?
- Michael, London
Your criticism of the British Military is unfair. You have misunderstood the nature of the mission, which in military terms has been, indeed, a success. You are judging it as if it were a failed imperial exercise in suppressing the natives, which most emphatically it was not. It was quite right for the British to withdraw partially, maintaining a back-stop presence in the region, but refusing to supply the violent, chaotic elements of so-called insurgents with cheap targets. The Military and brave politicians, who have gained nothing for their own standing by this, have taken the long view in this matter which journalists, even the good ones such as yourself, have not grasped. The mission in Iraq was a limited one for the US and the UK. Saddam Hussein and his young dynasty-in-waiting were human weapons of mass destruction which could no longer be tolerated by the international community. Whatever strategic value he may once have held in the past as a regional counter-balance to Iran expired. Imagine how much more difficult our dealings with Iran would be with the threat of Saddam intact to justify their need for a nuclear deterrent? It is dreaming to believe that a painless transition to a functioning democratic state should have been achieved within a five or even ten year period, a dream which haunts the public with guilt, but which political leaders and the Military never harboured, much to their credit. The Iraqis have suffered, but they had no hope under Saddam.
- Bloke, London
Next time, and there will be a next time if this New Labour postering about 'The War on Terror' continues ad finitum, the General Staff should tell the government that the armed forces can't do, won't do it and the whole Officer and senior NCO corps send in their papers unless our armed forces have a good few years to rebuild and retrain. After all this worked in Ireland during the Home Rule Crisis before the Great War.
- Richard Meredith, Huntingdon, UK
Wow! This article must be a real morale booster to British troops as Christmas nears.How did Dorothy Parker and Calvin Coolidge get into this? I'm glad I am not forced to earn a crust by writing long winded demoralising stuff like this.Suppose Saddam Hussein had been left in power, pursuing his desire for weapons of mass destruction and the the occupation of Kuwait, and the destuction of Israel? What then?
- Gery, MerseysideU.K
That's telling it like it is! Would that our politicians stop mouthing platitudes and get real - our armed forces deserve better.
- Gareth Jones, Woking, England
Let hope our leaders we will avoid wars, that we don't have the bank account or will to win in future!
- Pete Mac, Bath,UK
Hear, hear. The whole thing has been an absolute disgrace. You have to wonder whether we have the balls to fight a war anymore.
- David Pritchard, Madrid, Spain
Gordon Browns only interest is the survival of Gordon Brown. He must be the most didhonest man every to be in office. Why didnt he bring our lads out before now, or why did our lads go to Iraq in the first place. Trying to get political addvantage on the backs of our troups is about as low as it gets. I believe our troups are the best in the world, despite the likes of Brown and his nodding dogs. Why wait until next July to bring them home, bring them home today and save any more casualties. Or does July fit in nicely with your election plans.
- Mr G Pickles, Leeds, UK
Andrew,
You hit it exactly with "Afghanistan has chewed up all previous foreign armies, big or small." You cannot win a war in Afghanistan unless you propose to settle there, see all of history. And probably of prehistory also. Civil wars there are endemic, so killing yet more people in support of one side or another will achieve nothing except infuriate more Muslims everywhere. Do we never learn?
- Peter Ravenscroft, Brisbane, Australia
I suggest that F William Engdahl's book "A century of war" will answer most questions about the UK's involvement in the Middle East.
The cover of my copy shows British troops under the command of Major-General Stanley Maude entering Baghdad on 11 March 1917 "in a military expedition which drew (Allied) forces away from the European theatre at a critical moment in the war".
The subtitle of Engdahl's book is "Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order"
- Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury
Couldn't agree more with your comments Mr Gilligan.
The British Army has been made to look as useless and stupid, as the Americans often were in the last War, whilst War Criminal Tony B.Liar is swanning around writing huge cheques payable to himself in blood, under the pretence of being a 'peace envoy'
- Simon F, Newcastle UK
That sums it up in a nutshell,hope mr.brown reads this.
- Huggins, dover
