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Topic: The British have basically been defeated in the south (Read 384 times) |
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Hermit
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The British have basically been defeated in the south
« on: 2007-08-10 09:16:18 » |
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British losses soar as they prepare to leave Basra city
Source: The Independent
Authors: Patrick Cockburn
Dated: 2007-08-10
Two more British soldiers were killed in southern Iraq yesterday, raising the death toll in the UK's least successful military campaign since Suez in 1956. In both cases the British casualties were low but British forces wholly failed to achieve their objectives.
Two Irish Guardsman were killed and two were seriously wounded in the early hours of yesterday when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near the Rumaila oilfields west of Basra. The deaths bring to 168 the number of British personnel who have died in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.
British losses have increased as they prepare to abandon their last base in Basra city and retreat to their frequently attacked air base on the outskirts of the city. Here the contingent of 5,500 troops has been hit by mortars and rockets more than 600 times in the past four months.
"Basra's residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat," according to a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) on Basra published in June. "Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and unconstrained than before."
British officials have privately echoed American claims that the Shia militias in Basra and in the rest of Iraq are being manipulated and supplied by Iran. But the three main Shia groupings in Basra, the Mehdi Army, the Badr Organisation and Fadhila, would control most of southern Iraq with or without Iranian aid.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior US intelligence official was quoted as saying in Baghdad. The final deterioration of the British position has become evident since the end of Operation Sinbad between September 2006 and March 2007 which sought to curb the militias and strengthen security in Basra. But from March on the militias have reasserted their hold on the city and killed 30 British soldiers between April and July, making it the deadliest period for British forces at any time since 2003.
The increase in attacks may be because the militias see the British as being on the run, but also because of the growing military friction between the Shia militiamen and the occupation forces in general.
Lt-Gen Raymond Odierno, the US deputy commander in Iraq, says Shia militants were responsible for 73 per cent of the attacks that killed or wounded American soldiers in Baghdad in July. The increase in Shia attacks on British personnel may be part of the same pattern.
The US has been seeking to blame the escalation of Shia militia attacks on Iran but it is more likely that they are the result of growing frustration of the Shia, who make up 60 per cent of the Iraqi population, at what they see as increasing US support for the Sunni.
The Pentagon and White House have launched a campaign to persuade the media that Iran's provision of sophisticated shaped charges is a decisive factor in the war and is causing numerous US casualties. The accusation is denied by Iran and, even if true, the provision of a single type of explosive device is unlikely to be of critical significance in such a complex struggle.
British forces have already withdrawn from three of the four provinces in southern Iraq saying they are turning over security to Iraqi government authority. But police and army in Basra and southern Iraq are largely under the control of militias.
The outlook for the two million people in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, is not good. According to the ICG report, violence in the city has little to do with sectarianism or anti-occupation resistance but involves "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighbourhood vigilantism... together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:The British have basically been defeated in the south
« Reply #1 on: 2007-08-19 08:57:54 » |
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[Blunderov] Afghanistan is going no better either. No wonder Tony Blair was happy to leave. Dubya must be bright green with envy; he has to hold the baby for another 18 months.
editorandpublisher.com
U.S. Adviser Tells London Paper: Brits Have Lost Basra
Published: August 19, 2007 12:20 AM ET
LONDON An adviser to the U.S. military said British troops have lost control of the Iraqi city of Basra and face an "ugly" withdrawal in the coming months, a British newspaper reported.
Stephen Biddle, a member of a group that advised U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq last year, told the Sunday Times that "insurgents are calling the shots" in the southern city.
"I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history," Biddle was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The insurgents "in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of town."
British forces have already been moving from a combat role to aiding Iraqi forces in southern Iraq, and Britain is expected to hand over control of Basra to Iraqi troops in the next few months.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also promised to make a statement in October on the future of the 5,500 British troops in the region.
Biddle, a military analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, said insurgents and militia groups were likely to target British soldiers with ambushes, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades as they leave.
"It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat," Biddle told the paper. "It will be ugly and embarrassing."
A total of 168 British personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Biddle was a member of a group that spent weeks in Iraq last spring to advise on developing a new war strategy that envisions establishing security at the local level in Baghdad and elsewhere by the summer of 2008.
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