A mortar round exploded nearby as the US Marine stepped on to the street in Basra, forcing him to dive back inside his combat vehicle for cover.
“That was the first time that I thought, OK, this is serious, we are not playing games any more,” said Lieuten-ant-Colonel Chuck Western, one of the first Marines to venture into the city in late March to support an Iraqi-led offensive against gangs of well-armed militia.
Holed up at an old police station, the 400-strong battalion of Iraqi soldiers was taking a pounding, but the men cheered at the sight of their team of seven military advisers – embedded officers and soldiers who help to train Iraq’s fledgeling forces.
The Basra offensive, started unexpectedly by Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, on March 25 to rid the oil-rich port city of armed gangs, was the first real test of the Government’s ability to impose its authority on one of the most lawless parts of the country. It also demonstrated a growing distrust of the British military, which was kept unaware of the plan until the last moment after Mr al-Maliki discovered that Britain had been negotiating with the very militia he was trying to expel.
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Even after the offensive had started, the 4,000 British troops based at Basra airport were unable to join the fight because of a deal with al-Mahdi Army not to enter the city. It would take six days before the permission was granted by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary.
Details of the “accommodation” between British intelligence officers and elements of al-Mahdi Army, which has been blamed for murders and other atrocities in Basra for the past four years, shocked US and Iraqi officers, who have expressed a sense of betrayal. All parties involved agree that Britain’s reputation in Iraq has been badly, possibly irrevocably, damaged by the episode.
The Charge of the Knights, as the operation was called, got off to a shaky start as Iraqi police and soldiers – trained by the British but lacking much experience – met fierce resistance from the Shia militiamen, threatening a humiliating early defeat for the Iraqi leader.
Demoralised and outgunned, some 3,000 men surrendered their weapons and fled, their vehicles left burning in the street. Mr al-Maliki, who flew down to Basra to take command of the operation, knew that the outcome would probably decide his fate as well.
“There was a lot of confusion at that time,” Colonel Western told The Times from his base in the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. “Units were evaporating from the 14th division. Orders were not necessarily clear. The battalion was being sent all over the place. There was not a coherent plan at the time.”
Corporal Hussein Abid Hamza is a soldier in the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division of the Iraqi Army. It is Iraq’s best-trained division and is seen as a rapid reaction unit. Colonel Western and his team helped to train the troops.
Arriving at the northern gates of Basra as part of the first wave of additional manpower, Corporal Hamza admitted that he had an attack of nerves as he saw two colleagues give up and go home. “I told myself that if I gave up too, then someone else would, and someone else would until no one is left,” said the 23-year-old, who opted to stay and fight, holding out for three or four days at the nearby police station in what the Marine advisers refer to as the Battle of the Gates.
Sergeant Joshua Stone, 23, remembers that battle all too well, particularly one night when militiamen started attacking the police station where the Iraqis and their US advisers were based with 120mm rounds.
“Somebody took them [the attackers] out before they landed on top of us, but that was pretty scary knowing that the next one was going to land on top of us,” he said.
Colonel Imad, the commander of one of the rapid reaction battalions, said that he thought he might die.
“I carry a photograph of my children in my pocket but I did not allow myself to look at it because I was feeling at the time that I would never see my children again and I did not want to cause myself extra psychological pressure,” he said.
Brigadier-General Adel Abbas, commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, complained that the British failed to provide any support for his men, even though they were taking part in clearing areas such as Hayaniya, once a no-go area for British troops.
The 1st Battalion commander recalled asking for a portable toilet only to be told that he should ask his own Defence Ministry because it had the resources.
Even with restricted British help, the battle began to turn against the militia once a US presence was established. Marines were able to call in air support and artillery and target mortar positions and snipers, inflicting damage on a militia force that until that moment had enjoyed a free reign.
General Abbas said that the militia’s power had been overestimated and likened al-Mahdi Army’s strength to a rotten door – give it a good kick and it will shatter.
“In 2005, the British started to lose in Basra. They left the mission and started to defend themselves,” he said. “The militia and other bad guys started to become strong. The militia did not see any serious power from the Army.” He was referring to the situation in August last year, when the remaining few hundred British troops were under siege at the Basra palace fortified compound inside the city. Britain’s main base at an airport just outside the city was also under constant rocket and artillery fire.
In what turned out to be a misinterpretation of the violence as criminal-led rather than a full-blown insurgency, Britain cut a deal with the Sadrist militia to ensure the safe withdrawal of British troops from the Basra palace to the airport in return for the release of a number of militia prisoners, in what became known as the “accommodation”.
The broader plan had been to reach out to the political wing of al-Mahdi Army to try to bring it into the political process and marginalise the extremists, according to a British official with knowledge of the negotiations.
The arrangement was not dissimilar to the agreement struck between the US military and Sunni Muslim insurgents in central Iraq. The difference was that the British had effectively surrendered control of the city.
Under attack from Iraqi forces backed by US advisers and air power, the resolve of the militiamen started to crumble. The first signal that the battle for Basra was over came when Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army leader, agreed to observe a ceasefire brokered by Iran.
The black-clothed militiamen started to melt away across the Shatt al-Arab waterway towards the nearby Iranian border. Local people, who had existed under the tyranny of the militia, quickly took advantage of the situation.
They began talking to Iraqi soldiers and tipping them off about where to find huge stockpiles of rockets, roadside bombs, mortars, rifles, ammunition and other weapons.
Colonel Richard Iron, the British adviser to the top Iraqi commander in Basra, said that his most memorable moment was on April 19 when the security forces passed through Hayaniya, once the most notorious hotbed in the city, where numerous tortured bodies had been dumped.
“There were a number of minor battles when the Mahdi Army tried to resist the Iraqi Army, but by lunch-time it was all over,” he said.
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“The most remarkable thing was the sense of liberation amongst the population . . . it was then that I was certain we had the people on our side and we couldn’t lose.”
Four months on, security continues to improve in the city, but people remain sceptical that it will last.
Eman Ali, 24, a university student who stopped attending classes at the height of the intimidation, said: “My life has changed dramatically since the operation because like many women I was on the verge of being killed for refusing to follow the orders of the militias and wear a headscarf.
“Now I am back to studying and I can move around more freely, but I still don’t trust the situation.”
Secret deal kept British Army out of battle of Basra
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Originally Posted by Joker85
