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Leading article:

'We are not handing over a land of milk and honey'

I

17.12.200

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3258032.ece

Leading article:

'We are not handing over

a land of milk and honey'

Published: 17 December 2007
The Independent

When British forces transferred control of Basra province to the Iraqi authorities yesterday, they did so with a precision of language and ceremonial perfected over more than half a century as a contracting colonial power. The commander who had led British troops into Basra four years ago led them out again. The Foreign Secretary represented the British government. Iraq's National Security Adviser thanked British forces and hailed a "victory for Iraq". Flags were raised and lowered; a memorandum was signed.

For all the fine words and formality, however, there was no concealing the uncomfortable and many-layered truth. This was not a victory, certainly not for the British, but not for the Iraqis either. For security reasons, the ceremony took place not in the city of Basra proper, but at the airport encampment to which the British had withdrawn three months earlier. The control that the British were handing over to the Iraqis was a flattering way to describe a security muddle contested by rival militias. Nor were the British actually leaving. They were merely moving from a combat to an "overwatch" function, which means that they will continue to train Iraqi forces and can be called upon to assist them, if needed.

Of course, it suits both sides to maintain the illusion of good order. Basra is the last of the four provinces for which British forces had responsibility. Its handover marks the formal conclusion of Britain's combat duties in Iraq – and the latest stage in the end of one of the least happy chapters in relations between our two countries. It should allow up to half of the remaining British contingent to return home, if not by Christmas or the New Year, then by the less rigidly defined terminus of next spring.

While welcoming the reduction in the British military presence in Iraq – a reduction that was accelerated after Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister – we would nonetheless note with regret and not a little chagrin the damage to which we have contributed. More than 170 British soldiers have died; the number of Iraqi deaths remains – shamefully – uncounted, but is many, many times more. There has been huge displacement of people. The security situation, while consistently better in the south than in central Iraq, remains to this day far from ideal. It is, the Foreign Secretary admitted with striking candour yesterday, "very, very violent". "We are not handing over a land of milk and honey."

There is no longer fighting in the streets, but a once relatively relaxed and cosmopolitan city is no longer that. The freedom of women, especially, has been curtailed, and becomes more restricted by the day. British troops may have acquitted themselves – a few lamentable cases excepted – with a professionalism that has been widely admired, but they were dispatched on a mission that was as impossible as it was misguided. It is only by scaling back the objectives that the task can be described as in any way accomplished.

But the cost goes beyond even the human losses and enduring insecurity. A poll conducted for the BBC found that more than 85 per cent of those asked felt that the effect of the British troop presence on the province had been negative; more than half believed that it had increased the level of militia violence. Only 2 per cent thought that it had been positive. This is a devastating verdict, relieved a little only by the finding that two thirds of those polled forecast that security would start to improve, once Iraqi forces took over responsibility.

With British troops no longer on the frontline anywhere in southern Iraq, that hope will now be tested. But it is a bleak legacy that this wholly unnecessary conflict leaves behind, and one that will not be erased for a very long time.

    Leading article: 'We are not handing over a land of milk and honey', I, 17.12.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3258032.ece

Britain bows out of a five-year war

it could never have won

Published: 17 December 2007
The Independent
By Patrick Cockburn

Britain handed over security in Basra province yesterday, bringing a formal end to its ill-starred attempt over almost five years to control southern Iraq.

The transfer of power was marked by a parade of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police beside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which runs past Basra. As helicopters roared overhead it was the biggest show of strength by the Iraqi army forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The great majority of people in Basra were glad to see the British go. " You can see the happiness on the faces of everyone," said Adel Jassam, a teacher. "It feels like a heavy burden has been lifted off our chests. "

The unpopularity of the British presence is underlined by the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the BBC showing that just 2 per cent of people in Basra believed that the British presence had had a positive effect on their province since 2003. Some 86 per cent said they saw British troops as having a negative impact.

Britain did not suffer a military defeat in southern Iraq, though it lost 134 soldiers and never really established control of the city, the second largest in Iraq.

By the time of yesterday's handover ceremony it had 4,500 troops in Iraq, confined to Basra airport, whose numbers will be reduced to 2,500 by mid-2008.

The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who was at the ceremony in Basra, said that Britain was not handing over "a land of milk and honey". This is an understatement, since the Basra that Britain leaves behind will be controlled by semi-criminal Shia militias and political movements whose differences are often over carving up local resources.

"This remains a violent society whose tensions need to be redressed," said Mr Miliband, "but they need to be addressed by Iraqi political leaders, and it is politics that is going to come to the fore in the months and years ahead."

The British Army some time ago concluded that its patrols simply provided targets for militiamen without doing any good.

The steady retreat of the British has not so far been followed by a battle for Basra between the three main contenders for power. These are the Fadhila movement, which controls much of the government, the Mehdi Army militia, loyal to the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organisation of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).

All these groups control in part or in full different units of the security forces, as well as valuable economic concessions, such as Basra port, through which flows much of Iraq's imports. Iran also retains a pervasive though often invisible influence over the militias.

Britain is officially handing over control, nominal though it may have been, of Basra to government security forces. This has supposedly long been the aim of the US and Britain in southern Iraq, but in practice both countries have increasingly favoured one only of the Shia parties, ISCI, as its favoured ally. This may eventually lead to a backlash by the Mehdi Army and Fadhila.

Violence in Basra was never as bad as it was in Baghdad or Mosul, because the city was overwhelmingly Shia. The Sunni and other minority groups have been progressively driven out. The British Army also never tried to impose its authority on the four southern provinces of Iraq to the degree that the US forces tried to win control of central Iraq.

The area where they were meant to be bringing a better life is one of the most devastated in Iraq. Because it was Shia it was never favoured by the over-whelmingly Sunni regime of Saddam. It was also in the frontline in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, when the city was shelled.

The date palms for which southern Iraq was famous were burned or cut down. In the marshes where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, a distinct civilisation had survived for 5,000 years until Saddam drained them so they could no longer provide a sanctuary for his opponents.

There seems to be no end to the miseries that Basra has suffered since the war with Iran started in 1980. The Iran-Iraq war was followed by the first Gulf War, and this in turn by the great Shia uprising of 1991, which began in a square in Basra when a tank gunner fired a shell into one of the omnipresent pictures of Saddam. In the fighting which followed, thousands of Shia were killed and more fled to Iran.

The fall of Saddam was highly popular in Basra, as it was in the rest of Shia Iraq, but while liberation was popular, occupation was not.

British forces had an early lesson about this when they entered the notoriously violent town of al-Majir al-Kabir north of Basra. An attempt to search for weapons led to friction, and during a second patrol this escalated into fighting, and the slaughter on 24 June 2003 of six members of the Royal Military Police who were trapped in the local police station.

Rivalries between different Shia militias remain intense and could explode at any moment. The Mehdi Army is currently obeying a truce called by Mr Sadr. His declared purpose is to root out criminals, and he wants to avoid a military confrontation with ISCI when it is backed by the Americans.

Mr Miliband may be right that Iraqi politicians are better able to handle Iraqi problems than the British, but this does not mean they are effective. The ruling elite in Basra is heavily criminalised, and although the three southernmost Iraqi provinces stand on a reservoir of oil, they remain miserably poor. For this the local leadership is partly to blame, but the leadership of the Shia community in Iraq comes primarily from Baghdad and the shrine cities of Kerbala and Najaf. Basra has always felt exploited and neglected.

Britain stumbled into a small war in southern Iraq which it did not expect to fight and where its aims were always unclear. It is now stumbling out with very little achieved and its military reputation dented, after a conflict in which a victory could never have been won.

    Britain bows out of a five-year war it could never have won, I, 17.12.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3258008.ece

UK has left behind murder and chaos,

says Basra police chief

Blunt assessment delivered

as British hand over security to Iraqis

Monday December 17, 2007
Guardian
Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O'Kane and Ian Black


The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.

Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday's handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate.

Major General Graham Binns, who led British troops into the city in 2003, said the province had "begun to regain its strength". He added: "I came to rid Basra of its enemies and I now formally hand Basra back to its friends."

But in the film, to be broadcast on the Guardian Unlimited website and ITV News, Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:

· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;

· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;

· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.

In the interview he said the main problem the Iraqi security forces now faced was the struggle to wrest control back from the militia. He appealed for the British to help him do that: "We need the British to help us to watch our borders - both sea and land and we need their intelligence and air support and to keep training the Iraqi police."

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, who attended the handover ceremony, acknowledged that the territory was not "a land of milk and honey" and promised Britain would remain a "committed friend" of Iraq.

But he insisted it was the right time to hand back control. "The key conditions for the transfer of security responsibility to the Iraqi security forces are whether they are up to it: do they have the numbers? Do they have the leadership and training to provide leadership for this province? And the answer to those three questions is yes," he said.

After the handover Des Browne, the defence secretary, praised British forces - 174 of whom have died since the start of the war in March 2003. "Their contribution has been outstanding and their courage inspiring," he said. A scaled-down UK force will remain in a single base at Basra airport, with a small training mission and a rapid reaction team on "overwatch".

Britain now has 4,500 troops in Iraq. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has said numbers would shrink to 2,500 by mid-2008 though those released may be redeployed to Afghanistan.

Khalaf, who has survived 20 assassination attempts since he became police chief six months ago, said Britain's intentions had been good but misguided. "I don't think the British meant for this mess to happen. When they disbanded the Iraqi police and military after Saddam fell the people they put in their place were not loyal to the Iraqi government. The British trained and armed these people in the extremist groups and now we are faced with a situation where these police are loyal to their parties not their country."

He said the most shocking aspect of the breakdown of law and order in Basra was the murder of women for being unIslamic. "They are being killed because they are accused of behaving in an immoral way. When they kill them they put underwear and indecent clothes on them."

In his office Khalaf showed the Guardian a computer holding the files of 48 unidentified women. "Some of them have even been killed with their children because their killer says that they come out of an adulterous relationship," he said.

Vince Cable, the acting Lib Dem leader, called for a timetable to bring all British troops home from Iraq, adding: "If we are handing power back to the Iraqis, why are 4,500 British troops needed for what is essentially a training mission?"
 

· The General's Last Stand: a Guardianfilms/ITV News investigation can be seen now on the Guardian website and later tonight on ITV News at 6.30pm and 10.30pm

    UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief, G, 17.12.2007,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2228690,00.html

So, what did we achieve?
 

After four years and 174 dead,

Britain's lead role in Basra is over

As responsibility for security is formally passed to theIraqis today, Raymond Whitaker examines what, if anything,our armed forces
have accomplished there since 2003

Published: 16 December 2007
The Independent

The symbolism will be overwhelming. Today, at the last British military base in Iraq, Britain will formally hand over security in Basra, the last of the four Iraqi provinces for which it took responsibility after the invasion in 2003, to the local authorities. Bands will play; there will be a reading from the Koran; and speeches will declare this to be a historic moment.

In reality, however, nothing will change today. British forces stopped patrolling the rural areas of Basra province well before early September, when they finally quit Basra Palace, their last foothold inside Iraq's second largest city.

At that point, more than three months ago, the Iraqi army and police effectively took over security in the area which contains more than 70 per cent of the country's proven oil reserves and supplies 90 per cent of government revenue. Nor, after the ceremony, will hundreds of British soldiers be relieved of their duties in time to fly home for Christmas.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already outlined the timetable: the 4,500 troops remaining at the contingency operating base, known as the COB, at Basra airport will gradually be reduced by 2,000 over the first three months of 2008. Those left will continue training Iraqi forces and maintaining an "overwatch" role, ready to intervene in an emergency if asked to by the Iraqis.

Despite their retreat from the streets of Basra, British forces are not completely out of danger. Last week Guardsman Stephen Ferguson of the 1st Battalion, the Scots Guards, was killed when his Warrior armoured vehicle slid into a canal. He was the 174th British soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion. And, though the British force has not suffered a death from "hostile activity" since September, rocket and mortar attacks on the COB continue. Many of the troops still sleep in tents, with blast walls made of breeze-blocks or sandbags surrounding each bed, so that, while a direct hit would be fatal, the rest of the tent's occupants might escape without serious injury.

All this is out of sight and out of mind as far as Basra's inhabitants are concerned. "We do not see them [British troops], and we do not know what they are doing," said Abdullah Haji, a 52-year-old electrician. "We do not know how many are left in Basra, or how much longer they will be staying here. Now we have our police and army, and we also have the militias. But I do not want to talk about the militias."

Mr Haji's nervous comments go to the heart of the dispute over what, if anything, Britain has achieved in Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found, of course, but four and a half years after Tony Blair proclaimed "Iraq will be a significantly better place as a result of the action that we have taken", can we claim any success? Or have we allowed politicians and military commanders to redefine the mission in such a way that they can deny it has been a complete failure?

"Whatever mistakes have been made," Mr Blair was saying in mid-2004, "... let us be pleased that Iraq is liberated." But only two years after the invasion, British officials in Basra were emphasising, off the record, that it was unrealistic to expect that south-east Iraq would ever be like south-east England. It had always been a lawless, violent place, where tribal rivalries, smuggling and bloody vendettas were a way of life.

The next stage in this lowering of expectations came in October last year, when the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said that the presence of British troops in the area was "exacerbating" the situation, and that they should leave "soon". In the wake of General Dannatt's outburst, and especially after British combat deaths rose this year to their highest total since 2003, the military authorities began stressing that 90 per cent of the armed attacks in Basra were directed against British troops. Those who predicted that a British withdrawal to barracks would see an upsurge in violence would be proved wrong, they said.

Comments last week by the British military spokesman in Basra, Major Mike Shearer, followed this script faithfully. He said British troops had pulled out of Basra city because their presence was felt to be "provocative", adding that attacks had dropped dramatically since September. He accepted that the province was not "fixed", but went on: "We never pretended that we were going to hand over a province that had a white picket fence around it like a scene from The Stepford Wives."

Others, however, see an alternative reality. One Basra resident, Ahmed Hussein, welcomed the British withdrawal from Basra Palace purely because it had deprived the militias of a target. As they exchanged fire, he said, "they both used to miss, and a lot of innocent people got killed". But Peter Harling, Iraq project director of the International Crisis Group, which earlier this year published a damning report on Britain's occupation of Basra, said the British would have been unaware of these casualties.

"The only violence the British forces know about is that directed against them," said Mr Harling. "They have never monitored violence against Iraqi civilians, who have been left exposed. They have no protection whatsoever in their daily dealings with the militias and criminal gangs who dominate Basra."

Claims that General Jalil Khalaf, a new police commander sent in from Baghdad, had had some success in bringing order were sceptically treated by Mr Harling. "It would take a major showdown, of the kind the British never sought, to achieve any sort of order," he said. "The militias haven't confronted the Iraqi authorities, because they don't consider them a major threat. At the moment, despite regular clashes, there is a precarious working relationship among the militias, but it is a balance of terror."

Extreme Islamists have brutally enforced their vision of proper behaviour, banning activities which used to be normal in what was once a sophisticated city, such as music and dancing. In the past three months, 42 women have been reported killed for wearing make-up, or failing to don the hijab headscarf. Sama, a 24-year-old student, said ,"All my family, my friends, go out now with their heads covered. We know of girls who were killed because they did not listen to warnings. There was one woman who was accused of having an affair, and they took her away. No one has seen her since. Before the war we could all go out without our heads covered. We even went out in mixed groups, but that is no longer possible."

A poll of Iraqis in Basra, commissioned for BBC2's Newsnight last week, showed that a huge majority – 86 per cent – believed that the presence of British troops had had a negative effect on the province. More than half, 56 per cent, thought it had increased the level of militia violence, and nearly two-thirds wanted the British to depart the region altogether.

Was any other outcome ever possible? Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at London University and the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), doubts whether foreign forces could ever have achieved the Washington neocons' vision of spreading peace and democracy in the Middle East through regime change in Iraq. But he is particularly scathing about British policy in Basra, saying: "It was doomed from the beginning, because we never had anything like enough troops or resources on the ground. Since we were never able to help the ordinary people of Basra, we simply set the policy to fit the resources."

Even within the narrow definition of success for British forces, however – the absence of mass violence - the triple bombing that took place last week in Amara was an ominous sign. One of the worst attacks in months, it killed at least 40 people and wounded more than 150 in an area where security responsibilities were handed over to the Iraqis earlier this year. Most analysts blamed militia rivalries, and Christopher Langton, senior fellow at the IISS, warned: "This could be replicated in Basra."

But even if there were to be a similar upheaval as powerful forces struggle for the spoils in a city which is the hub of Iraq's oil industry, Britain would insist that it was a problem for the Iraqis themselves to solve. With only 2,500 troops remaining, there are questions whether they would be able to do much more than defend themselves, and the hope is to have most of them home by the end of 2008.

At American urging, enough forces will be kept in place for the time being to secure Basra airport and the supply lines from Kuwait to Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. This may mean that some British troops remain in Iraq for several years to come. But the plain truth is that the British mission there came to an end for all practical purposes several months ago, when Operation Sinbad, a last attempt to seize back the initiative in Basra from the militias, was called off. It is a long way from the crusading zeal of 2003.

Voices from on and off the battlefield

Even among the many who believe we should never have gone into Iraq, there is the uneasy feeling that the manner of our leaving is less than honourable:

'We are very glad the British got rid of Saddam, but things are really bad here'

Abdullah Haji, 52, Basra technician

'I have much less freedom since the British came than before'

Sama, 24, Basra student

'This [withdrawal] is long overdue, for all the good the Iraqi adventure has done'

Peter Kilfoyle, former defence minister

'It is the start of a very difficult period of confrontation with Iran'

Patrick Mercer, Tory MP and former army officer

'If we had left earlier, we would have left it in a much better state'

Rose Gentle, Whose son, Gordon, died in Iraq

'Was it worth all the bloodshed? I don't think it was'

Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former chief of defence staff

    So, what did we achieve? After four years and 174 dead, Britain's lead role in Basra is over, I, 16.12.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3255705.ece

4.45pm GMT update

Video released

of five Britons held hostage in Iraq

Tuesday December 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Allegra Stratton and agencies

A video of five British citizens kidnapped in Iraq and held since May has been aired on Al Arabiya television today.

The video calls for British forces to withdraw from the country or the kidnappers would kill one of their five hostages.

The video showed a statement in which the group threatened that "this hostage will be killed as a first warning, which would be followed with details that you would not wish to know".

One of the hostages was shown on the video as he sat in front of a banner of the Shi'ite Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

"Today is November 18. I have been here now 173 days and I feel we've been forgotten," he said.

He was filmed with two masked militants pointing assault rifles at him as he sat on the floor.

The Foreign Office has seen the video and issued a statement condemning the taking of any hostages.

A Foreign Office spokesman said it was the first video released concerning these hostages that the ministry was aware of. They are the only British citizens held hostage in Iraq.

The five men were abducted from the finance ministry in Baghdad on Tuesday May 29 by about 40 gunmen disguised in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by the Iraqi security forces. The hostages are thought to be an IT consultant and his four bodyguards.

The written statement featured on the video accused Britain of plundering the wealth of Iraq and that the five hostages had "acknowledged and confessed and detailed the agenda with which they came to steal our wealth under false pretense of being advisers to the finance ministry."

On the video, the kidnapper said the date was November 18 and gave the UK 10 days to meet their demands.

The Foreign Office spokesman said: "No matter what the cause, hostage taking can never be justified. We again call on those holding the men to release them unconditionally.

"We condemn the publication of this video which serves only to add to the distress of the mens' family and friends."

The abduction came as violence in Iraq was nearing its peak. It has since declined, due largely to the influx of American troops into the capital, the freeze in activities from the feared Mahdi army Shiite militia, and the US push to enlist local Sunnis to help in the fight against al-Qaida.

    Video released of five Britons held hostage in Iraq, G, 4.12.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2221759,00.html

British hostages in Iraq

to be ‘held for years’

November 18, 2007
From The Sunday Times
Hala Jaber, Baghdad

THE kidnappers of five British hostages seized in Baghdad last May have said they could be held for years if demands for the release of an Iranian-backed militia leader are not met.

The warning came as the first detailed information emerged about the plight of the hostages, who enter their 174th day in captivity today.

The men, an IT consultant and four bodyguards who were kidnapped from the finance ministry, have recorded messages for their families in a video passed to officials in Iraq. They also appealed to the British government to help to free them.

The video is understood to show the hostages in good health, although drained by their ordeal. They are said to be eating well and have access to satellite television.

Senior Iraqi government sources say their captors have promised they will not be harmed but any rescue attempt would endanger them. They claimed the hostages will remain prisoners “for as long as it takes” to secure the release of Qais al-Khazaali, a former chief spokesman for the Shi’ite Mahdi Army.

Khazaali, who led a Mahdi faction trained in Iran, was detained by American forces after masterminding a raid inside a base in which five US soldiers were killed.

Talks aimed at freeing the hostages are believed to have reached deadlock this month after British negotiators said they had no power to free Khazaali.

The disclosures about the hostages’ condition, the captors’ warnings and the negotiations in Baghdad are the first of their kind since the men were taken.

The Foreign Office has imposed a virtual news black-out in contrast to the publicity given to Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist who was held for four months in Gaza.

Johnston’s uncle, Alastair Hetherington, said yesterday it had been a “big comfort” to his nephew to hear radio bulletins with news of efforts to win his release.

The families of the Iraq hostages have been advised not to give interviews and an anonymous statement in September calling for the release of the captives attracted little attention.

Iraqi government sources said last week that photographs of the hostages were provided some time ago to prove they were alive.

After Gordon Brown asked Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, for help last month, a CD containing footage of the hostages was passed to officials. It carried messages to their families, an Iraqi government source said. The hostages told their wives or girlfriends that they loved and missed them.

The Iraqi source said they spoke of being “psychologically and emotionally tired”, adding: “They are being fed three good meals a day. They are being well treated. They have continuous access to satellite television.”

Senior Baghdad government sources said at least three negotiating sessions had taken place in the past few weeks between the kidnappers’ intermediaries and British, US and Iraqi officials.

The demand for Khazaali’s release is believed to have been high on the agenda, but the talks reached an impasse. “The kidnappers apparently came to the conclusion that the British position was weak and that they [the British] were unable to resolve this alone - that everything they sought was tied to the USA.”

The Americans refused to free Khazaali, the sources added.

Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, said it was difficult to justify the curbs on media coverage: “If you are a hostage, publicity is a lifeline.”

The Foreign Office said: “Although there is much going on behind the scenes, it is extremely sensitive and we can’t go into detail about it.”

    British hostages in Iraq to be ‘held for years’, STs, 18.11.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2890922.ece

4.45pm GMT

Inquest into soldier's Iraq death begins

Monday October 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Haroon Siddique and agencies


A 19-year-old serviceman was killed in Iraq while travelling though a notoriously dangerous area without the latest bomb detection equipment, an inquest heard today.

Gordon Gentle, a Royal Highland Fusilier, from Pollock, in Glasgow, whose mother Rose has become a figurehead for Britain's antiwar movement, was killed by a roadside explosion in Basra in June 2004.

Fusilier Gentle's commanding officer, Colonel Paul Cartwright, told the hearing that on the day of his death he had volunteered to be a 'top cover' sentry on an armoured Land Rover.

It was in a convoy passing through Basra when an improvised explosive device (IED), planted by insurgents, went off.

The inquest heard the route on which they were travelling was nicknamed "IED Alley" by some soldiers.

Col Cartwright said he had become aware of a new device to combat roadside bombs during May 2004 and made it a "high priority" to get the equipment, referred to in court as Element B. But the devices were not fitted until the day Fusilier Gentle was killed, the inquest heard.

Speaking before the hearing, which is expected to last two weeks and hear from 50 witnesses, Ms Gentle said she held Tony Blair ultimately responsible for her son's death because he took the decision to go to war.

However, she added that she hoped the inquest, taking place in Oxford, would reveal "who else could have been responsible for the equipment".

"I just really want the truth. I want to know what happened on that day when Gordon was killed," she said.

"You're waking up every morning and Gordon's the first thing in your head - why did he die and should he have died that way?"

She has consistently demanded a public inquiry into the decision to go to war, saying it was based on a lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Along with Beverley Clarke, whose son also died in Iraq, she won the right to take a case challenging the legality of the conflict to the House of Lords in June this year.

In the 2005 general election, she contested the East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow seat against the sitting Labour MP, Adam Ingram, who was the armed forces minister at that time.

    Inquest into soldier's Iraq death begins, G, 29.10.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2201223,00.html

Britain to Cut Iraq Force to 2,500

October 8, 2007
Filed at 11:46 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- Britain will withdraw nearly half its troops in Iraq beginning next spring, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday, leaving a contingent of 2,500 soldiers in the highly unpopular war.

Brown told lawmakers the move is possible because of improving security following the U.S. increase in troop numbers this summer and detailed discussions with the Iraqi government on a visit last week.

''We plan from next spring, to reduce force numbers in southern Iraq to a figure of 2,500,'' Brown said in a statement to Britain's Parliament.

Britain is currently scaling back forces and by the year's end will have 4,500 troops based mainly at an air base camp on the fringe of the southern city of Basra.

A decision on further cuts will be made once the reduction to 2,500 is complete, Brown said, rejecting a call from opposition lawmakers to set a timetable to withdraw all British troops.

''The security gains made by the multinational forces this year have been significant,'' Brown said. ''As important as improving security is building the capacity of the Iraqi forces so they can achieve our aim: that Iraqis step up and progressively take over security themselves.''

Iraqi forces will take control of security in the southern province of Basra within two months, ending Britain's combat role in the country, Brown said.

British forces will move to an oversight role which will initially include securing key supply and transit routes from Kuwait to Baghdad, Brown said.

But during a second stage beginning next spring, British troops will ''maintain a more limited re-intervention capacity and where the main focus will be on training and mentoring,'' Brown said.

Around 500 British logistics and support staff will be moved outside Iraq, but within the Middle East region, to support the remaining troops, Brown said.

They are likely to be based in Kuwait, said officials speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. But Brown declined to specify citing security concerns.

Britain's participation in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion -- and the continuing presence of troops in the country four years later -- remains deeply unpopular. Poll show a majority want troops brought home, and the war was a major factor in reducing Prime Minister Tony Blair's parliamentary majority in the 2005 election.

On Monday more than 2,000 people marched from London's Trafalgar Square to Parliament to demand a complete withdrawal of British troops.

In all, 170 British troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Iraqi interpreters or civilian staff employed by British forces for more than 12 months will be given financial aid to resettle within Iraq or leave the country, Brown said.

Following a furor over the lack of support or asylum rights offered to Iraqi workers, Brown said some staff would be cleared in ''agreed circumstances, for admission to the United Kingdom.

Brown's announcement came days after a visit to Baghdad and Basra which saw him announce a cut of 1,000 troops by the year's end and hold talks with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The leader was criticized from mishandling troop figures during the trip -- counting an already completed withdrawal of 500 soldiers within an announcement that 1,000 troops would return.

Brown called Monday for increased work by the Iraqis to push political settlements, including the sharing of oil revenues.

''Our message to the government of Iraq -- and to the leaders of all Iraq's communities and parties -- is that they must make the long-term decisions needed to achieve reconciliation,'' Brown said.

    Britain to Cut Iraq Force to 2,500, NYT, 8.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Iraq.html?hp

2.45pm update

1,000 troops home by Christmas,

says Brown

Tuesday October 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

Britain will pull 1,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, Gordon Brown announced during a surprise visit to Baghdad today.

The prime minister brushed off concerns the security situation would deteriorate, predicting that Iraqi forces could take control of Basra province within the next two months.

Mr Brown said the UK force in Basra would be cut from 5,500 to 4,500, meaning 1,000 troops were likely to be "home by Christmas".

However, the departure of 500 of these forces had already been announced last month.

The news - clearly timed to coincide with the third day of the Conservative party conference - further heightened speculation that Mr Brown will call a November election.

Any declarations of further troop reductions had been expected to be made in the prime minister's Commons statement on the future of the British mission in Basra next week.

The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, who made his own set piece speech to the Tory conference today, called Mr Brown's Baghdad visit a "photo opportunity" and "cynicism".

However, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, gave the troops announcement a guarded welcome.

"If it is now possible to hand over progressively to the Iraqi army and to bring more of our troops home, then he [Mr Brown] will certainly have my support," he said.

Speaking on his first visit to Iraq since becoming prime minister, Mr Brown said he believed the 30,000 Iraqi security forces in the south were capable of taking over from the British in Basra province.

"What we propose to do over these next few months is to move from a situation where we have a combat role to an overwatch role," he said following a meeting with Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki.

Mr Brown said that this would involve the present British force of 5,500 being cut to 4,500. "Hopefully they will be home by Christmas," he added.

The prime minister refused to comment on suggestions that he was preparing to call a general election next month. "The first thing on my mind today is the security of our armed forces," he said.

"I am very proud of what our armed forces are achieving here. I believe they have acted with great courage, professionalism and bravery."

Mr Maliki said Iraqi authorities were "prepared to take over security of Basra within two months".

Mr Brown also announced plans for a new investment agency and development fund for Basra to speed up economic regeneration, urging Iraq's political parties to redouble their efforts to achieve reconciliation.

He later travelled to Basra airport, the British base, where he was expected to be given a warm reception after announcing the troop reduction.

UK troops are stationed at the airport after pulling out of Basra palace, their last base in the city itself, last month. On September 8, the ministry of defence announced that troop levels would be cut by 500.

It is expected, however, that a UK force will remain at the airport on "tactical overwatch", ready to help the Iraqi security forces if they run into any difficulties they cannot deal with alone.

Basra will be the last of four southern provinces handed over to Iraqi control by the UK. In August, the governor of Muthana province - the first to be handed back, in July 2006 - was assassinated in a bomb attack.

The MoD has said rocket and mortar attacks on the Basra airport base had fallen sharply in the last month, with only a few attempted strikes.

However, some Iraqis have argued that violence in Basra itself is on the increase.

"The withdrawal of the British forces has had a negative effect on security in the city," Karim al-Miahi, the head of the Basra security committee and a member of the provincial council, said.

"Iraqi forces still are not able to control the situation, which has deteriorated over the past three weeks."

Britain's consul general in Basra, Richard Jones, told the BBC that most local people were fearful about the future, adding that the local police had been infiltrated by hardline Shia militias.

    1,000 troops home by Christmas, says Brown, G, 2.10.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2181755,00.html

5.15pm update

Browne signals Iraq pull-out

and opens door to Taliban in Afghanistan

Tuesday September 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Deborah Summers, Haroon Siddique and agencies

Des Browne warned today that Britain still faced a "complex and difficult situation" in Iraq, hours after he said that Taliban participation was needed for the peace process to succeed in Afghanistan.

The defence secretary said last night that the UK could face civil or military commitments "for generations" in Iraq and Afghanistan but today raised hopes of a quick withdrawal from Basra.

"At some point in the near future, the Iraqi forces will be able to take full responsibility for the security of the Basra province," Mr Browne said at the Labour party conference in Bournemouth.

"In seeing that process through we will fulfil our obligations to the government and people of Iraq and to the United Nations."

The Taliban government in Afghanistan was overthrown by a US-led coalition in 2001 but the Islamic extremist group has been resurgent over the past 19 months and the number of British military fatalities now stands at 81 since the invasion.

Mr Browne said that the participation of the country's former rulers was necessary in the peace process if it was to be successful.

"In Afghanistan, at some stage, the Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process because they are not going away, any more than I suspect Hamas are going away from Palestine," he told delegates.

The defence secretary suggested that that those overseeing the peace process would probably expect the former rulers to obey some "basic parameters" before becoming involved.

But he added that there was no possibility of establishing a western legal system in Afghanistan and argued that an "Islamic-based" solution must be accepted instead.

"I don't want to tell you the colour of the face of the Swedish defence minister when I suggested to her at some stage it may be necessary, in order to get to where we want to be in Afghanistan, for us to accept that there is some route through an Islamic-based legal system that will get us there," he said.

    Browne signals Iraq pull-out and opens door to Taliban in Afghanistan, G, 25.9.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2176882,00.html

U.S. and British Officials

Meet on Iraq Strategy

September 18, 2007
The New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS and GRAHAM BOWLEY

LONDON, Sept. 18 — The two top American military and diplomatic officials in Iraq are in London today, setting out their vision for the continued American troop presence in Iraq to the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, amid concerns that a British withdrawal from the south of the country could leave American forces and a major supply route at greater risk of attack.

In testimony on Capitol Hill last week, the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, and the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, made clear that the Bush administration’s overall strategy in Iraq would remain largely unchanged after the temporary increase in American forces, known as the surge, is over next summer. And they made clear their view that the United States would need a major troop presence in Iraq for years to come.

But Britain, the United States’ chief ally in the war in Iraq, has already begun a transition to an “over-watch” stance in Iraq, a reference to a process begun under the former prime minister, Tony Blair, for turning over control of the areas where British troops are in charge to Iraqis.

British troops in southern Iraq have made the handover in three of the four provinces where they held security responsibility, and there is speculation that Mr. Brown could go further, responding to antiwar sentiment in Britain by pulling British troops more rapidly out of an unpopular war, although the British government has given no timetable for withdrawal.

British commanders, including the chief of the British general staff, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, have expressed a preference for an early withdrawal from Iraq, saying that Britain’s armed forces are overstretched, with heavy presences in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two weeks ago, British commanders pulled back the last of their troops from the center of Basra, concentrating the 5,500 remaining British troops in Iraq at the Basra Air Station, 12 miles northwest of the city.

The step was part of a plan laid out by Mr. Blair in February, when Britain had 7,100 troops in the country; 1,600 troops were withdrawn from the country over the summer.

General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker were to meet with General Dannatt and the defense minister, Desmond Browne, in London this morning. After an afternoon news conference, they are scheduled to share a working dinner with Mr. Brown, at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence.

According to British media reports, British commanders would like to further reduce their presence in Iraq around November or December, the time of the next scheduled rotation of British combat units there.

Mr. Crocker and General Petraeus are expected to tell British leaders today that, even if the main body of British combat troops are withdrawn, they want Britain to maintain a headquarters in Basra province and keep up the fairly strong intelligence network that Britain has built up in the south over the past four years.

In addition, they reportedly want Britain to station a unit of perhaps 350 troops in the border area east of Amarah, 100 miles northeast of Basra, to inhibit the infiltration of Iranian agents and weapons.

The British newspaper The Telegraph, citing unnamed British commanders in Iraq, described one plan that has been floated for 2,500 troops, or about half the remaining British troops, to relocate to Kuwait, less than an hour’s drive south of Basra.

From there, the thinking goes, they could continue to train Iraqi troops and to protect convoys on the main supply route north from Kuwait to Baghdad through Basra, a job that they have handled since the early days of the war and that American leaders say remains vital.

There has been some sharp criticism in the United States of the British draw-down of forces, both from Bush administration and military figures, who say the British forces are leaving the field at a critical moment, just as the United States has increased its combat forces in a push for greater security and political stability.

But some American commanders in Iraq have taken a more realistic view, saying that with the June ascent to power of Mr. Brown, who is known to be much less enthusiastic about the war than Mr. Blair was, and with British public opinion overwhelmingly opposed to the war, that a drawdown of British forces was inevitable.

An American commander said the British drawdown was “not what we’d have sought in a perfect world.” Still, he said, American commanders believed that the British withdrawal from the center of Basra was being offset by a strengthening of Iraqi forces there. And even if the British have acted sooner than American commanders might prefer, he said, they are nonetheless following a pattern consistent with the long-range American strategy of transferring security responsibility to Iraqi forces.

During a visit to Camp David in July for talks with President Bush, Mr. Brown left the door open for a withdrawal, if, he said, his commanders thought it was feasible. He said that any future British decision to reduce troops and cede control of a sector to the Iraqis “will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground.”

    U.S. and British Officials Meet on Iraq Strategy, NYT, 18.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/world/europe/18cnd-london.html

It is the death of history

Special investigation by Robert Fisk

Published: 17 September 2007
The Independent

2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.

Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein's regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures.

In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, armies of looters moved in on the desert cities of southern Iraq and at least 13 Iraqi museums were plundered. Today, almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters.

In a long and devastating appraisal to be published in December, Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh says that armies of looters have not spared "one metre of these Sumerian capitals that have been buried under the sand for thousands of years.

"They systematically destroyed the remains of this civilisation in their tireless search for sellable artefacts: ancient cities, covering an estimated surface area of 20 square kilometres, which – if properly excavated – could have provided extensive new information concerning the development of the human race.

"Humankind is losing its past for a cuneiform tablet or a sculpture or piece of jewellery that the dealer buys and pays for in cash in a country devastated by war. Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."

Ms Farchakh, who helped with the original investigation into stolen treasures from the Baghdad Archaeological Museum in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, says Iraq may soon end up with no history.

"There are 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. In the Nassariyah area alone, there are about 840 Sumerian sites; they have all been systematically looted. Even when Alexander the Great destroyed a city, he would always build another. But now the robbers are destroying everything because they are going down to bedrock. What's new is that the looters are becoming more and more organised with, apparently, lots of money.

"Quite apart from this, military operations are damaging these sites forever. There's been a US base in Ur for five years and the walls are cracking because of the weight of military vehicles. It's like putting an archaeological site under a continuous earthquake."

Of all the ancient cities of present-day Iraq, Ur is regarded as the most important in the history of man-kind. Mentioned in the Old Testament – and believed by many to be the home of the Prophet Abraham – it also features in the works of Arab historians and geographers where its name is Qamirnah, The City of the Moon.

Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working. Fifteen hundred years later – in what has become known as "the age of the deluge" – Ur produced some of the first examples of writing, seal inscriptions and construction. In neighbouring Larsa, baked clay bricks were used as money orders – the world's first cheques – the depth of finger indentations in the clay marking the amount of money to be transferred. The royal tombs of Ur contained jewellery, daggers, gold, azurite cylindrical seals and sometimes the remains of slaves.

US officers have repeatedly said a large American base built at Babylon was to protect the site but Iraqi archaeologist Zainab Bah-rani, a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, says this "beggars belief". In an analysis of the city, she says: "The damage done to Babylon is both extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect it, placing guards round the site would have been far more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition military headquarters in the region."

Air strikes in 2003 left historical monuments undamaged, but Professor Bahrani, says: "The occupation has resulted in a tremendous destruction of history well beyond the museums and libraries looted and destroyed at the fall of Baghdad. At least seven historical sites have been used in this way by US and coalition forces since April 2003, one of them being the historical heart of Samarra, where the Askari shrine built by Nasr al Din Shah was bombed in 2006."

The use of heritage sites as military bases is a breach of the Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954 (chapter 1, article 5) which covers periods of occupation; although the US did not ratify the Convention, Italy, Poland, Australia and Holland, all of whom sent forces to Iraq, are contracting parties.

Ms Farchakh notes that as religious parties gain influence in all the Iraqi pro-vinces, archaeological sites are also falling under their control. She tells of Abdulamir Hamdani, the director of antiquities for Di Qar province in the south who desperately – but vainly – tried to prevent the destruction of the buried cities during the occupation. Dr Hamdani himself wrote that he can do little to prevent "the disaster we are all witnessing and observing".

In 2006, he says: "We recruited 200 police officers because we were trying to stop the looting by patrolling the sites as often as possible. Our equipment was not enough for this mission because we only had eight cars, some guns and other weapons and a few radio transmitters for the entire province where 800 archaeological sites have been inventoried.

"Of course, this is not enough but we were trying to establish some order until money restrictions within the government meant that we could no longer pay for the fuel to patrol the sites. So we ended up in our offices trying to fight the looting, but that was also before the religious parties took over southern Iraq."

Last year, Dr Hamdani's antiquities department received notice from the local authorities, approving the creation of mud-brick factories in areas surrounding Sumerian archaeological sites. But it quickly became apparent that the factory owners intended to buy the land from the Iraqi government because it covered several Sumerian capitals and other archaeological sites. The new landlord would "dig" the archaeological site, dissolve the "old mud brick" to form the new one for the market and sell the unearthed finds to antiquity traders.

Dr Hamdani bravely refused to sign the dossier. Ms Farchakh says: "His rejection had rapid consequences. The religious parties controlling Nassariyah sent the police to see him with orders to jail him on corruption charges. He was imprisoned for three months, awaiting trial. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage defended him during his trial, as did his powerful tribe. He was released and regained his position. The mud-brick factories are 'frozen projects', but reports have surfaced of a similar strategy being employed in other cities and in nearby archaeological sites such as the Aqarakouf Ziggarat near Baghdad. For how long can Iraqi archaeologists maintain order? This is a question only Iraqi politicians affiliated to the different religious parties can answer, since they approve these projects."

Police efforts to break the power of the looters, now with a well-organised support structure helped by tribal leaders, have proved lethal. In 2005, the Iraqi customs arrested – with the help of Western troops – several antiquities dealers in the town of Al Fajr, near Nasseriyah. They seized hundreds of artefacts and decided to take them to the museum in Baghdad. It was a fatal mistake.

The convoy was stopped a few miles from Baghdad, eight of the customs agents were murdered, and their bodies burnt and left to rot in the desert. The artefacts disappeared. "It was a clear message from the antiquities dealers to the world," Ms Farchakh says.

The legions of antiquities looters work within a smooth mass-smuggling organisation. Trucks, cars, planes and boats take Iraq's historical plunder to Europe, the US, to the United Arab Emirates and to Japan. The archaeologists say an ever-growing number of internet websites offer Mesopotamian artefacts, objects anywhere up to 7,000 years old.

The farmers of southern Iraq are now professional looters, knowing how to outline the walls of buried buildings and able to break directly into rooms and tombs. The archaeologists' report says: "They have been trained in how to rob the world of its past and they have been making significant profit from it. They know the value of each object and it is difficult to see why they would stop looting."

After the 1991 Gulf War, archaeologists hired the previous looters as workers and promised them government salaries. This system worked as long as the archaeologists remained on the sites, but it was one of the main reasons for the later destruction; people now knew how to excavate and what they could find.

Ms Farchakh adds: "The longer Iraq finds itself in a state of war, the more the cradle of civilisation is threatened. It may not even last for our grandchildren to learn from."

A land with fields of ancient pottery

By Joanne Farchakh, archaeologist

Iraq's rural societies are very different to our own. Their concept of ancient civilisations and heritage does not match the standards set by our own scholars. History is limited to the stories and glories of your direct ancestors and your tribe. So for them, the "cradle of civilisation" is nothing more than desert land with "fields" of pottery that they have the right to take advantage of because, after all, they are the lords of the land and, as a result, the owners of its possessions. In the same way, if they had been able, these people would not have hesitated to take control of the oil fields, because this is "their land". Because life in the desert is hard and because they have been "forgotten" by all the governments, their "revenge" for this reality is to monitor, and take, every single money-making opportunity. A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a cuneiform tablet earns $50 (£25) and that's half the monthly salary of an average government employee in Iraq. The looters have been told by the traders that if an object is worth anything at all, it must have an inscription on it. In Iraq, the farmers consider their "looting" activities to be part of a normal working day.

    It is the death of history, NYT, 17.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2970762.ece

John Curtis: A failure of duty

Published: 17 September 2007
The Independent

Why does all this matter? The fact is that Iraq, ancient Meso-potamia, is rightly regarded as the cradle of civilisation. Some of the world's earliest archaeological sites are here, and the period following 3000 BC, when writing was invented, witnessed the rapid growth and development of towns and cities.

Mesopotamia was home to the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, all of whom made great contributions to the development of civilisation and left a legacy on which Europe drew heavily. It is vital to safeguard these finds for future generations, but just as important is the protection of archaeological sites which can tell us so much about the past. When sites are looted, that evidence is lost for ever.

We had hoped the looting of archaeological sites was on the wane but if Robert Fisk's information is correct, looting is on the increase. We have signally failed in our duty to safeguard and protect the Iraqi cultural heritage. And lessons still have not been learned. Not only did military planners fail to heed the warnings of archaeologists at the time of the invasion, they continue to do so. This cavalier behaviour must stop, and we must unite to try to rescue the Iraqi cultural heritage.

 

The author is Keeper of Middle East, British Museum

    John Curtis: A failure of duty, I, 17.9.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2970763.ece

Iraq attacks signal

start of Ramadan offensive

Published: 17 September 2007
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad

Bombs, mortars and gunfire left dozens dead and injured in Iraq within hours of insurgents announcing a Ramadan offensive.

The attacks, three of them in Baghdad, came just days after US General David Petraeus's report said violence had fallen and President George Bush declared "ordinary life was returning to the country".

Iraqi police said nine were killed and 12 injured in shootings at Mansour, one of the busiest parts of Baghdad, when either American troops or private military contractors opened fire on a crowd after coming under sniper attack. The US military said the incident was being investigated.

Those shootings followed a car bomb outside a store on a street crowded with shoppers, killing three and wounding seven. Soon after, a mortar landed at the Shaab stadium near the city centre, killing two men.

The attacks in the capital followed a roadside bomb overnight at a bread queue for Iftar, the evening breaking of fast during the Muslim holy month. Eleven people, including three children, were killed, and nine were wounded.

Farah Abdullah, a 34-year-old teacher whose cousin was injured in the Mansour attack, said: " Why did this happen today? We have not been able to get out of our neighbourhood for days. We only came out today to buy food and this happened to us. They [the Americans and Iraqi police] have all these checkpoints so why didn't they stop these people?" Elsewhere, 15 people were killed at Muqdadiya, north of Baghdad, by gunmen who also set a dozen shops alight. Two more were killed by mortar fire in Samarra.

In Hilla, south of Baghdad, a traffic policeman and his 16-year-old son were abducted. Their bodies, with marks of torture, were later found dumped. In Baquba a boy of six was killed by sniper fire.

And at Tuz Khormato, near Kirkuk, a booby-trapped bicycle exploded outside a café serving food during the traditional fasting hours, killing at least eight and injuring 19. Rescuers expected the death toll to rise as they dug through the rubble.

The Sunni insurgent group, the Islamic State of Iraq, which is said to be linked to al-Qa'ida, had announced it would carry out "offensive operations" during Ramadan to commemorate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born founder of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, who was killed in a US air strike in June last year.

Meanwhile, the US military captured Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli, a suspect in the assassination of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a key US ally, in Anbar province last Thursday. The Islamic State of Iraq group threatened to hunt down any other tribal leaders co-operating with the US. It said it had formed "special security committees to trace and assassinate prominent [leaders] of agent tribes" who co-operated with the Americans.

The US military said it had been in talks with some Shia leaders in the south of the country. American soldiers may help to train their young men, who may be used to bolster security on the Iranian border.

    Iraq attacks signal start of Ramadan offensive, I, 17.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2970789.ece

Iraq conflict

has cost 1.2 million lives,

claims civilian survey

Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor


A startling new household survey of Iraqis released last week claims as many as 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - apparently lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels.

More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.

Previous estimates, most prominently collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reported in Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number, 654,965, as a likely figure in a possible range of 390,000 to 940,000.

Although the household survey was carried out by a polling organisation, rather than by epidemiological researchers operating under the discipline of scientific peer review, it has again raised the spectre that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has caused a far more substantial death toll than officially acknowledged by the US or UK governments or the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

The ORB survey follows an earlier report by the organisation which suggested one in four Iraqi adults had had a family member killed. Their latest survey suggests that in Baghdad that number is as high as one in two. The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on how their loved ones were killed. It reveals 48 per cent died from a gunshot wound, 20 per cent from the impact of a car bomb, nine per cent from aerial bombardment, six per cent by accident and six per cent from another blast or ordnance.

If true, the latest figures would suggest the death toll in Iraq now exceeds that of the Rwandan genocide when 800,000 died.

The new effort to estimate the number of dead in Iraq is certain to reignite the controversy over the lack of any proper accounting of the number of civilian dead in Iraq, rejected by US commander General Tommy Franks who said: 'We don't do death counts.' The problem has been exacerbated by the unwillingness of the Iraqi government to release proper accounting of the death toll which has led to suspicion of the figures being estimated deliberately downwards.

An absolute minimum of just under 80,000 deaths has been established by the British group Iraq Body Count. The Lancet survey was criticised by some experts and rubbished by George Bush and British officials. In private, however, the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser Sir Roy Anderson described it as 'close to best practice'.

    Iraq conflict has cost 1.2 million lives, claims civilian survey, O, 16.9.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2170237,00.html

Basra: The soldiers' tales

A sense of relief tinged with loss

as troops reflect on a brutal campaign

Published: 05 September 2007
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta
 

The convoys from Basra Palace were lined up outside the airport yesterday, their dusty armour punched and dented by rocket-propelled grenades and bullets in the months of ferocious firefights in the "ambush alleys" of the city.

The 550 soldiers who had withdrawn from the one remaining British base in Basra to the airbridge, the last post for UK troops before the final departure from Iraq, were tired and reflective. There had already been mortar rounds fired at their new home, but it was nothing compared with what they had been facing, and most had not even noticed the attack.

The soldiers of the 4 Rifles Battle Group spoke for the first time yesterday about their night-time evacuation from the palace and also how, for five months, they had been living under a state of siege with attacks around the clock and patrols being hit by roadside bombs.

After their experience, the vast aridness of the airport, with its comparative security, air conditioning and showers was a welcome respite. Cpl Frank Taylor, a 29-year-old from Fiji, said: "This actually feels like a holiday. I am actually quite relaxed. We have been through some pretty difficult times, and, yes, I have been scared.

"I remember once a group of Bulldogs [armoured vehicles] came under fire. I dived under one of them and there were rockets and mortars landing all around us. I saw something roll by, I thought it was a tyre, but then I saw it was the tailfin of a mortar. That was pretty close."

There was a degree of bitterness among some soldiers that many in Britain appeared to have forgotten about the men and women they had sent off to this highly unpopular war.

Cpl Leigh Pool, 28, from Bedfordshire, said: "We are soldiers and we do what we are ordered to do. But it does seem sad that there is so little news about people getting killed here."

Lt-Col Patrick Sanders, the commanding officer of the 4 Rifle Battle Group, had the task of planning the withdrawal. Despite a declaration by British officials of faith in Iraqi security forces, it was decided that the Iraqi police, deeply infiltrated by Shia militias, should not be allowed access to the palace. Instead, a Palace Protection Group, drawn from outside Basra, has been trained by the UK forces.

The withdrawal from the palace has become a highly contentious event, and is seen as a symbolic parting of the ways between the UK and the US over the war. Gordon Brown has promised to meet Britain's responsibilities in Iraq, but told President George Bush at his Camp David retreat in July that the US would not have a veto over when Britain withdraws from southern Iraq. Mr Brown wants to shift British forces from Iraq to what is seen as a more winnable – and less unpopular – struggle in Afghanistan, which he has described as the "front line against terrorism".

Lt-Col Sanders had spent four years in Baghdad when his father was a British military attaché there in the 1970s. He had returned after the war and served with the Americans in the Iraqi capital. "There are issues here which are extremely difficult," he said. "But the fact remains that we are told by the Iraqi commanders that our presence in the city was inciting attacks, so, under the circumstances, it is right that we withdrew. The planning had to be carefully organised. I was reassured by the commander of the protection force.

"It has always been our intention to hand over security to the Iraqis. It is not our job to stay here as foreign troops against their wishes, so I believe we have taken the best decision possible. I would also like to think that what was achieved at Basra Palace had restored some of the reputation of the British forces which had been damaged by mistakes by a very few people."

The difference in emphasis between the UK and the US has never been so marked. While the US has poured troops into the "surge" in Baghdad and central areas of the country, British officials are adamant that the presence of foreign troops is simply encouraging more violence.

The Iranian influence, say officials, is "not all malign" and the end of the occupations would help turn Iraqis against Iranians seeking hegemony.

The British forces say they have not been defeated, but they have learnt, the hard way, not to outstay their welcome.

Lt-Col Patrick Sanders

Commanding officer, 4 rifles battle group, in charge of basra palace

We had known for a while that we had to leave Basra Palace, but it was a hugely difficult matter with a lot of political complexities. We decided on a night move and it was broadly successful. We had one IED [improvised explosive device] and three soldiers received minor injuries.

We have faced a lot of action while we were at Basra Palace and our guys have acted with immense courage. I could have stayed on there for another six months, we would have been able to defend ourselves, and killed a lot of people in the process, but what would that have achieved?

Some of the militias fighting us are nationalists and they do not like foreign troops in their country, and that is probably a healthy thing. Ninety per cent of the violence in Basra City was directed at foreign forces and by us leaving that violence should go down, so it was probably time for us to leave.

But there are also a lot of thugs among the militias and I am glad that British forces played a part in showing the local population that one can stand up to them. Was the war in Iraq justified? It is too early to tell. If Iraq manages to be at peace with itself and its neighbours then it would have been worthwhile. If that doesn't happen, questions will be asked.

Lance Corporal Leigh Pool

Age 28, Bedfordshire

We were getting attacked every day and most nights at the palace for week after week. They were getting quite good at hitting targets, but after a while you have just got to live with it and get on with what you have to do. Some of us were called out on operations as well, and then we faced a lot of small-arms fire as well. We simply did not hang around anywhere on foot.

On the night of the pullout, I was one of those sent out early to secure the route. We were out for the whole night – it was pretty tiring.

What makes me a bit angry is that there have been soldiers dying out here and people, and there is so little notice taken back at home. It seems people have forgotten about the Iraq war. The thing is that it may be old news back home, but this is still going on and we are doing what we were sent out to do. It is a shame that some of these losses are not being recognised.

Rifleman Dwayne McIntyre

Age 25, North London

When we were under regular attack, you cannot really relax at all. At least at the palace, we had proper buildings where we could take shelter. When we got ambushed at the PJCC (a central police base), we were out in the open and you feel the danger.

Corporal Lucas Farrell

Age 23, Liverpool

[One night] we had left Basra Palace on a supply convoy to the PJCC in Bulldogs, Warriors and military trucks. As we were unloading the supplies in the base, we came under attack from mortars and rockets. It was pretty fierce. An officer who had been briefing us one minute was then killed. We were stunned, like, shocked.

But then there was no more time to think about that. We were told that they [the militias] would know when we went out and that they would be waiting for us. And that's what happened. As we left, there was firing from all sides. We were getting repeatedly ambushed, they were hitting the vehicles [with] small arms, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades]. What they were trying to do was hit the ones in the rear and separate the convoy and trap some of us. There was a lot, a lot of shooting. I don't know how much was fired in total, I was using a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) and I myself fired around 600 rounds.

We drove straight back to Basra Palace with the officer's body – then you thought about what had happened, and it was very sad.
 

    A sense of relief tinged with loss as troops reflect on a brutal campaign, I, 5.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2927085.ece

Patrick Cockburn:

This deployment was always doomed

Published: 05 September 2007
The Independent

The British campaign in Basra was undermined from the beginning to the end by lack of Iraqi support. The supposed aim of the occupation of Basra and southern Iraq was to allow time fora stable and democratically elected Iraqi government authority to be established with its own police and army forces on whom it could rely.

This was never likely to happen. The British occupation began with the killing of six British military policemen at Majar al-Kabir, south of Amara, in June 2003 after an ill-conducted search for arms.

Local people said they had never bowed their heads to Saddam Hussein and asked why they should now accept a foreign occupying power.

Tony Blair was endlessly claiming that the British forces were usefully engaged in training Iraqi security forces in the face of dogged resistance from "rogue" policemen.

But it was clear from early on that the rogues were, in effect, in charge.

British forces had to storm a police station to rescue their own soldiers who had been detained while spying in Arab clothing on the same station.

"As early as 2004, British influence was in steep decline," says Reidar Visser, a leading academic specialist on Basra and southern Iraq.

"In other words, the recent pull-out itself was a largely symbolic affair: the British ceased exercising effective control of Basra a long time ago."

Could the British have done any better?

The problem was the belief that because in 2003 the Iraqis were glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, they would welcome a foreign occupation force.

The Sunni in central Iraq rose in rebellion in 2003 but the Shia, though willing to use the occupation, never accepted it as legitimate.

In fact, an increasing number supported armed resistance.

They saw the rhetoric of President George Bush and Mr Blair about installing democracy in Iraq as propaganda concealing a neocolonial adventure.

    Patrick Cockburn: This deployment was always doomed, I, 5.9.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2927114.ece

Only time will tell

September 3, 2007
1:35 PM
The Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor


The long-awaited withdrawal of British troops from the Basra Palace, their last remaining base in Iraq's second biggest city, is not a "defeat", Gordon Brown insists. The exodus of 500 British soldiers was "pre-planned and organised", he told the BBC's Today programme.

The move, predicted in the Guardian two weeks ago, was certainly pre-planned. Indeed, for months now, British soldiers have been asking what was the point of staying at the palace, exposing not only themselves but the convoys that delivered supplies every night to unnecessary danger.

The number of British troops in southern Iraq will soon drop from 5,500 to 5,000. They will be based near Basra airport where they will take on an "overwatch" role - helping the Iraqi army in the event of a crisis, or "re-intervene" as Mr Brown put it. Britain will continue to train Iraqi forces and retain overall responsibility for security in Basra until a full handover, almost certainly before the end of the year.

After the 2003 invasion, British military commanders, prompted by their political and intelligence advisers, hoped that the overwhelmingly Shia, and potentially enormously wealthy, southern Iraq would unite and rebuild the region with the help of western aid and civil agencies. They failed to see that Shia militia would quickly fill the security vacuum in the country following the invasion and fall of Saddam. Senior British military officers grew increasingly frustrated with the slow progress in training Iraqi security forces, the divided loyalties of those forces, and the failure of civil agencies to build up the basic infrastructure.

They started dampening expectations. "Our mission," Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said recently, "was not to make the place look somewhere green and peaceful." Basra had been a success, he said, though that depended on "what your interpretation of the mission was in the first place".

The British government strongly denies there was any deal linking the handover of prisoners, including alleged members of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, to the Iraqi prosecuting authorities - and their subsequent release - to the withdrawal from the Basra Palace. The suggestion is that the militia would allow an orderly and safe withdrawal. The denials may sound disingenuous, given the timing. Meanwhile, Moqtada announces a six-month ceasefire, throughout Iraq.

It is against this background that Mr Brown can claim the withdrawal from the palace is not a defeat. The next few weeks and months will be important. If the withdrawal leads to mayhem and increasing violence that the Iraqi army and security forces are unable to control, then the government could hardly claim a success.

    Only time will tell, G, 3.9.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_nortontaylor/2007/09/only_time_will_tell.html

Patrick Cockburn:

Ignominious end to futile exercise

that cost the UK 168 lives

Published: 03 September 2007
The Independent

The withdrawal of British forces from Basra Palace, ahead of an expected full withdrawal from the city as early as next month, marks the beginning of the end of one of the most futile campaigns ever fought by the British Army.

Ostensibly, the British will be handing over control of Basra to Iraqi security forces. In reality, British soldiers control very little in Basra, and the Iraqi security forces are largely run by the Shia militias.

The British failure is almost total after four years of effort and the death of 168 personnel. "Basra's residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat," says a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and unconstrained than before."

The British military presence has been very limited since April this year, when Operation Sinbad, vaunted by the Ministry of Defence as a comparative success, ended. In the last four months the escalating attacks on British forces have shown the operation failed in its aim to curb the power of the militias.

The pullout will be a jolt for the US because it undermines its claim that it is at last making progress in establishing order in Iraq because Sunni tribes have turned against al-Qa'ida and because of its employment of more sophisticated tactics. In practice, the US controls very little of the nine Shia provinces south of Baghdad.

The British Army was never likely to be successful in southern Iraq in terms of establishing law and order under the control of the government in Baghdad. Claims that the British military could draw on counter-insurgency experience built up in Northern Ireland never made sense.

In Northern Ireland it had the support of the majority Protestant population. In Basra and the other three provinces where it was in command in southern Iraq the British forces had no reliable local allies.

The criticism of the lack of American preparation for the occupation by Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the British Army, and Maj Gen Tim Ross, the most senior British officer in post-war planning, rather misses the point. Most Iraqis were glad to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but the majority opposed a post-war occupation. If the Americans and British had withdrawn immediately in April 2003 then there would have been no guerrilla war.

The US has held most power while officially supporting the Iraqi government because it did not want Saddam Hussein replaced by Shia religious parties with close ties to Iran. Given that Shia are 60 per cent of the Iraqi population this is probably inevitable.

Soon after the British arrival, on 24 June 2003, British troops learnt a bloody lesson about the limits of their authority when six military policemen were trapped in a police headquarters between Basra and al-Amara. I visited the grim little building where they had died a day later. Armed men were still milling around outside. A tribesman working for a leader who was supposedly on the British side, said: "We are just waiting for our religious leaders to issue a fatwa against the occupation and then we will fight. If we give up our weapons how can we fight them?"

The British line was that there were "rogue" policemen and, once they were eliminated, the Iraqi security forces would take command. In fact, the political parties and their mafia-like militias always controlled the institutions. When a young American reporter living in Basra bravely pointed this out in a comment article he was promptly murdered by the police. One militia leader was quoted as saying: "80 per cent of assassinations in 2006 were committed by individuals wearing police uniforms, carrying police guns and using police cars."

Could any of this have been avoided? At an early stage, when the British had a large measure of control, there was a plan to discipline the militias by putting them in uniform. This idea of turning poachers into gamekeepers simply corrupted the police.

The violence in Basra is not primarily against the occupation or over sectarian differences (the small Sunni minority has largely been driven out). The fighting has been and will be over local resources.

The fragile balance of power is dominated by three groups: Fadhila, which controls the Oil Protection Force; the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which dominates the intelligence service and police commando units, and The Mehdi Army, which runs much of the local police force, port authority and the Facilities Protection Force. One Iraqi truck driver said he had to bribe three different militia units stationed within a few kilometres of each other in order to proceed.

In terms of establishing an orderly government in Basra and a decent life for its people the British failure has been absolute.

    Patrick Cockburn: Ignominious end to futile exercise that cost the UK 168 lives, I, 3.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2921877.ece

Leading Article:

The Basra endgame

and the trading of blame

Published: 03 September 2007
The Independent

The unseemly blame game over who lost Iraq – so reminiscent of those earlier anguished debates over who "lost" China, or Vietnam – has broken out in full. We must now expect more of the finger- pointing that General Sir Mike Jackson and retired Maj Gen Tim Cross have now begun, and which will no doubt prompt sharp retorts and counter-accusations from the other side of the Atlantic.

Few now seriously question the substance of the two generals' complaints, which is that the failure of the coalition to engage in "nation-building", meaning reconstruction, immediately after the invasion, opened the way for most of the horrors that have since ensued and which have now laid waste to much of the ancient land of Mesopotamia.

Their observations, in that limited sense, therefore are almost uncontroversial. What is wholly unprecedented is that they should have spoken out in this way in public. No matter the stresses and strains to which the Anglo-American alliance was subjected in recent decades, especially over the Balkans in the 1990s when there were countless off-the record briefings by one side against the other, it is hard to recall a time since the Second World War when differences between London and Washington have been aired in so open a fashion.

Along with devastating a country, the bungled invasion of Iraq appears to have done lasting damage to the so-called Special Relationship with the United States as well.

But while endorsing the thrust of the generals' criticism of Washington's post-war strategy in Iraq, or lack of one, we must be cautious about endorsing the apparent conclusion that just because the Americans got it wrong in Iraq, we might have got it right.

It is convenient now for the British, as we scuttle out in crablike fashion from Basra, to loudly claim that had our wise advice been heeded at the start, matters might have proceeded differently. Reliable information to substantiate this claim is not yet at hand.

It will be for historians to show whether or not we even possessed – let alone vainly pressed onto the Americans – a costed and worked out alternative strategy for the occupation of Iraq. At present, all we have is British assertions that Donald Rumsfeld was "warned" back in 2003 of what might go wrong and did nothing about it.

It is a point of some significance that the British have not presided over a level of reconstruction in our patch in the south around Basra that is significantly more impressive to what has gone on further north in the American zone. Some Americans might note that this is a telling failure, when the British cannot claim to have been distracted from this task by the kind of Sunni-Shia sectarian feuding that has perforce preoccupied the Americans.

The sad reality is that neither we nor the Americans will be leaving Iraq with much credit and attempts by either side to pass the buck are almost pointless. Worse, these futile quarrels are in danger of distracting attention from the real question; what in this terrible situation, mostly of our own making, can we now do for the suffering people of Iraq?

At this stage, with little more than a toehold at Basra airport, possibly not much. We might, however, have the decency to give the Iraqis a firm date for our withdrawal from the south of Iraq instead of slowly vanishing from the scene much like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat. That at least would be a decent ending to an otherwise ignominious episode.

    Leading Article: The Basra endgame and the trading of blame, I, 3.9.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2921859.ece

Basra celebrates British withdrawal

September 3, 2007
From Times Online
Martin Fletcher of The Times in Baghdad,
and Times Online

Basra's residents expressed pride and satisfaction today at the news that the British troops had slipped out of the city overnight after more than four years of occupation, and most gave credit to the Mahdi Army militia for having driven them out.

But some feared that the decision to withraw the last UK battle group in the city from their base at Basra Palace would remove any remaining restraints on Basra's warring militias and unleash more killings and kidnappings.

Major-General Mohan al-Firaji, commander of Iraqi security operations in Basra, set the tone with an early morning press conference in which he declared: “We have control of the palace. We are in charge now, and the army has orders to allow no-one inside until the Prime Minister decides what to do with it.”

The highly symbolic pullout began at around 10pm local time last night, when residents reported seeing a convoy of tanks, Land Rovers and armoured personnel carriers headed towards the main UK at Basra airport, where the 500-strong 4th Battalion The Rifles joined the other 5,000 UK troops still in Iraq.

Full control of Basra Palace was handed over to the Iraqi army shortly before 1am. Major Mike Shearer, the British spokesman in the southern city, said: “I can confirm that at 2200 local Iraqi time last night multinational forces based at the continuing operating base started to secure the route for the repositioning of troops from Basra Palace.

“At just before 1am local Iraqi time this morning, a bugler from Four Rifles sounded the advance. The Four Rifles Basra city battle group started to extract from Basra Palace. There were no major incidents during the operation and all troops were back at the continuing operating base by midday today Iraqi time.”

The British withdrawal was the top story on all the Iraqi television stations, with pictures of British Bulldog armoured personnel carriers heading towards the airport base, Iraqi soldiers walking through the palace’s empty halls, and Iraqi flags flying above its many gates and roofs.

Iraqi troops and police flooded the streets and erected checkpoints in a determined effort to show that they could maintain order.

Abu Ahmad, 36, an aide in the Basra office of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who controls the Mahdi army, told The Times: "This victory happened with the help of Allah and all those who gave their lives to achieve this goal, the nightly attacks on the palace with mortars and shells, under Moqtada's leadership."

Many inhabitants of Basra agreed. "The withdrawal of British forces was a success for the Mahdi army and a victory for the people of Basra. It is time to start a new chapter and rebuild our city," said Zuher Abid Ali, 41, an engineer.

"We're very happy because there are no more (foreign) troops in Basra," added Sami Ahmed, 31, a shopkeeper. "The militias forced British troops to leave."

The decision to pull out and hand over control was taken with the backing of the US and other coalition forces and in consultation with the Iraqi Government, the Ministry of Defence said - contradicting reports that US commanders had been "surprised" by the move.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, denied that the British troops had withdrawn in “defeat” and insisted the move to Basra Air Station was an “organised one”.

He said UK forces in the area would retain the capacity to intervene in support of the Iraqi army, and would do so in “certain circumstances”. The move was part of a transition for British troops throughout Iraq to an “overwatch role”, he added.

Mr Brown has resisted pressure to announce a timetable for the complete withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq - but has refused to do so, but today's pull-out from Basra Palace will fuel speculation that a large-scale withdrawal is imminent.

On the streets of Basra, some residents expressed concern about their future security in a city where three militias are battling for supremacy and control of Basra's huge oil revenues.

“The British withdrawal with all the militias and corrupt police in Basra is very dangerous for the city. We should have more trust in the Iraqi security forces before the British left,” said Kathum Jawad, 34, a doctor. “I can’t feel safe any more and I think the militias will start looting and kidnapping and killing without any forces to stop them.”

    Basra celebrates British withdrawal, G, 3.9.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2378371.ece

5pm update

British forces

complete withdrawal from Basra

Monday September 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty

The Iraqi flag flew over Basra Palace today as British troops completed their withdrawal from the city in a move Gordon Brown said was "pre-planned and organised" and not a defeat.

The removal of 550 British troops to the city's airport leaves Basra largely under the control of Iranian-backed Shia militias.

The move came as the US president, George Bush, made a surprise visit to Iraq in an attempt to win support from an increasingly sceptical US public for his "surge" of troops.

The withdrawal, which began last night, was completed today.

The flag of the 4 Rifles regiment was lowered inside the compound as a bugler sounded the retreat; an Iraqi flag was then raised in its place.

The prime minister insisted the withdrawal was not a "defeat", saying troops would remain at present levels for the time being so that Britain could "reintervene" if necessary.

"The numbers of troops are remaining roughly the same at this moment, and we are staying to discharge our obligations to the Iraqi people and the international community," Mr Brown told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The 550 soldiers began handing over control of the palace, the last British stronghold in downtown Basra, to the Iraqi army shortly before 1am local time (2200 BST yesterday), the army said. They then joined the 5,000 other British troops based at an airfield 13 miles away on the fringes of the port city.

"The handover of Basra Palace represents a significant step along the road to provincial Iraqi control," Brigadier James Bashall, second in command of British forces in Basra, told BBC Radio 4's programme The World at One.

After the withdrawal, the Iraqi authorities would take charge of the city in the autumn, the Ministry of Defence said in statement released last night. "Handing over Basra Palace to the Iraqi authorities has long been our intention, as we have stated publicly on numerous occasions. We expect the handover to occur in the next few days.

"The Iraqi security forces want to take full responsibility for their own security, and the handover is a step towards that goal. The decision is an Iraqi-led initiative and is part of a coalition-endorsed process, developed in consultation with the Iraqi government, and follows the successful handover of several other bases within and around the city."

The Basra palace had come under near daily rocket and mortar fire from Shia militias until the British troops released about 30 gunmen a few months ago and spread the word that they would soon withdraw.

The British forces' ability to control events in Basra waned in recent years as the militias rose in power.

But Iraqi government forces denied that the British departure would leave the militias in control of the city.

General Mohan al-Fireji, a senior Iraqi commander, said at a press conference in the southern city: "Iraqi forces are already deployed and concentrated in the palace. "The Iraqi forces are ready to take security responsibility in Basra."

"We are working very seriously to fill the security vacuum and we expect in the next few days to fill it in a good way," Iraq's defence minister, Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi, said. "I am certain that the security situation will be much better."

He added that British forces would act as a "backup" for Iraqi forces when requested. People on the streets of Basra cheered as British troops left. "We reject any strangers, and they are colonialists," said Rudha Muter, a local resident. "We are pleased that the Iraqi army are now taking over the situation. We as an Iraqi people reject occupation; we reject colonialism. We want our freedom."

The top Iraqi commander in Basra, Lieutenant General Mohan al-Fireji, said: "The British troops have pulled out from the presidential palaces.

"We told those [militias] who were fighting the British troops that the Iraqi forces are now in the palaces."

Khazaal al-Nisiri, an Iraqi army commander, said he was confident the force would be able to provide enough security without the British presence.

Major Mike Shearer, a British army spokesman in Basra, said there had been "no major incidents" during the withdrawal, which was completed by midday local time.

The pullout has prompted renewed questions over the future of Britain's role in Iraq, though the prime minister has refused to set a timetable for the eventual withdrawal of all UK forces.

Mr Brown is due to set out the future strategy for British operations in Iraq in a speech to parliament next month.

The former Labour defence minister Peter Kilfoyle told the Today programme: "There is a political dimension to this and a political impetus, and I am quite sure that this is a prelude to the complete withdrawal from Iraq itself.

"I also think politically that Gordon Brown would also very much want to ensure that he is seen as the prime minister who takes the troops out of Iraq as opposed to having put them in."

    British forces complete withdrawal from Basra, G, 3.9.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2161449,00.html

British leave last remaining Basra base:

What was achieved?

Published: 03 September 2007
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta
 

British forces have pulled out of Basra Palace, the onetime southern residence of Saddam Hussein that became the symbol of the UK's role in the US-led invasion.

The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.

The withdrawal itself took place with no fanfare or celebration. The troops from the 4th Battalion, the Rifles have been under a virtual state of siege, with constant rocket and mortar attacks, as they trained Iraqi forces to take over their duties.

Some of the 500-strong contingent who had already left had faced attacks on their way out, and the Ministry of Defence had attempted to keep the date of the evacuation confidential in an attempt to avoid what they term a full scale "fighting withdrawal".

The decision by the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, which had carried out repeated attacks on British troops, to call a ceasefire is believed to have played a part in determining the pullout date from the palace.

The UK military will now be based at Basra airport, in the outer fringes of the city, while what remains of the British-controlled south is handed over to the Iraqi authorities. The bulk of the force will then pull out of the country, leaving a reserve unit that would only be deployed in an emergency.

The palace was originally due to be handed over to Iraqi authorities in early August. But that was delayed under pressure from the Americans who remain unhappy about the pullout. They say, it will expose their supply lines from Kuwait as they take part in President George Bush's last throw of the dice in Iraq, the "surge" in Baghdad and the central area of the country. The British decision to resist further American pressure is being increasingly seen by the Bush administration as a sign of Gordon Brown's desperate desire to disentangle his government from the Iraq imbroglio.

In turn, the criticism from the US has become more vocal and strident. American officials have charged that the British have "lost the south". British exasperation at what they consider to be "unfair" American criticism surfaced in an article in The Washington Post, in the names of Defence Secretary Des Browne and Foreign Secretary David Milliband, saying "recent weeks have brought a lot of misplaced criticism of the United Kingdom's role in southern Iraq. It is time to set the record straight".

Critics say it has been an inglorious retreat and resulted in the danger that Basra and its inhabitants have been left to the mercy of murderous Shia militias.

British officials, on the other hand, insist that the base had been handed over to the Iraqi authorities who were now capable of providing security for their own people. The vast preponderance of the violence in Basra, the argument runs, has been directed at the foreign troops and removing them would lead to a decline in the bloodshed.

The people of Basra face an uncertain future. Hassan Ibrahim, a 48-year-old teacher, said: " There was criticism of the British because people felt they did not do enough to stop the criminals, some of whom are even in the police. But a lot of people also say that things could get much worse if they leave. One thing we are uneasy about are rumours that the Americans may come to Basra to replace the British. We see what is happening in Baghdad and we don't want that here."

Basra by numbers

1,628

Number of days the conflict has been running.

655,000 Civilian deaths in Iraq since the conflict began

168Number of British servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq

Britain sent 45,000 servicemen and women to fight the war in Iraq in March 2003

18,000British troops in Iraq in May 2003 at the height of the occupation

6,800 Total number of UK personnel deployed in Iraq theatre

5,500 Number of British troops presently in Basra

In the past four months there have been around 600 rocket and mortar attacks on the Basra airstrip, where British forces are based

£5bn Overall cost to the UK of war and occupation in Iraq

12,000,000 – or 76% of the electorate – took part in Iraq's elections in 2005 345,000 Members of the Iraqi Security Forces trained by British and US forces

One Victoria Cross has been issued in Basra, to Private Johnson Beharry

212km of new water pipe laid in a £9m project which employed 2,310 people at its peak

24,478 short-term jobs created

336 schools, refurbishments and supply projects

    British leave last remaining Basra base: What was achieved?, I, 3.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2921892.ece

7.15pm update

Death toll

in Iraq suicide blasts passes 250

Wednesday August 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Michael Howard in Irbil, Fred Attewill and agencies


A wave of suicide bombings unleashed against a minority sect has killed at least 250 people, making it the deadliest insurgent attack since the US-led invasion of Iraq 2003.

Rescuers searching through the ruins of clay houses in remote villages inhabited by the Yezidi sect pulled more bodies from the rubble this evening as the grim search for survivors wore on.

More than 350 people were wounded after suicide bombers detonated fuel tankers rigged with explosives in the villages of Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair in north-western Iraq, according to a spokesman from the nearby autonomous Kurdish region.

As the death toll rose this afternoon, it emerged that the attacks had killed more people than the November 2006 series of atrocities which claimed the lives of 215 people in Baghdad's Sadr City.

The villages are about 75 miles west of the city of Mosul, a stronghold of Sunni Islamic militants. The attacks targeted people from the Yezidi religious minority, whom Sunni extremists regard as infidels.

Four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously yesterday. The death toll was higher than in any other concerted attack since last November, when 215 people died following mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shia Muslim enclave of Sadr City.

Mr Qassim said four trucks approached from dirt roads and all exploded within minutes of each other. He said the number of dead and wounded was expected to rise further.

"We are still digging with our hands and shovels because we can't use cranes because many of the houses were built of clay," he said. "We are expecting to reach the final death toll tomorrow or day after tomorrow as we are getting only pieces of bodies."

A US military spokesman, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, said he believed the bombings were the work of al-Qaida.

"The car bombs that were used all had the consistent profile of al-Qaida in Iraq violence," Gen Bergner told reporters in Baghdad. "We're continuing to investigate, and we'll learn more in the coming days."

Kurdish officials said they had volunteered to protect minority groups in the area but Baghdad had failed to take them up on the offer because of its political paralysis.

According to officials in Sinjar, the bombers drove petrol tankers laden with explosives into three busy commercial neighbourhoods, flattening residential blocks and causing fires that raged out of control.

"This is an outrageous and cynical terrorist act against innocent people," said Jaasim Sinjari, a local official. "The Sunni Arabs are trying to wipe us out."

He said US helicopters had airlifted the many injured from the base at Mosul to hospitals in Tal Afar and Kurdish-controlled Dohuk.

Khadir Shamu, a 30-year-old Yezidi who works for the government, said he and a friend had been relaxing in the centre of Tal Uzair when the blasts shattered the peaceful evening.

"My friend and I were thrown high in the air. I still don't know what happened to him," he said. "Some time later I could feel people carrying me to an ambulance."

He said the rescue vehicle was packed with 12 other wounded people, including one who had lost both legs. "Inside the car, there were only screams of pain for an hour and a half before we reached the hospital."

The White House condemned the bombings as "barbaric attacks" and added: "Extremists continue to show to what lengths they will go to stop Iraq from becoming a stable and secure country."

The Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, warned residents last week that an attack was imminent because Yazidis were "anti-Islamic".

The explosions capped a grim day in which five US troops were killed in a helicopter crash, four died in other incidents and a suicide truck bombing near Baghdad destroyed a bridge and killed at least 10.

In Baghdad, dozens of uniformed gunmen abducted a deputy oil minister and four other officials.

Iraq's senior figures meanwhile continued a series of meetings aimed at reviving the country's political process, and the US military announced a fresh push to rid the volatile Diyala province of militants affiliated with al-Qaida.

Kurdish intelligence officials in Mosul say the crackdown on Sunni extremists in Diyala, and in Anbar province west of Baghdad, has forced militants towards Mosul, a traditional Sunni heartland.

The Yezidis, who are mainly ethnic Kurds, have inhabited areas to the west and east of Mosul for centuries. Other communities exist in Syria, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. Their faith is a mixture of ancient and living religions that draws upon Zoroastrian and Mithraistic elements. However, Christians and Muslims have often regarded Yezidis as devil worshippers because of their recognition of Satan.

Under Saddam many Yezidi families were driven from their ancestral lands and were the targets of brutal crackdowns. Since the fall of the regime in 2003, the fate of Yezidi communities, particularly those in the insurgent-infested areas west of Mosul, has been just as uncertain.

In April gunmen shot dead 23 Yezidi factory workers in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the stoning of a teenage Yezidi girl several weeks earlier. Police said local Yezidis had stoned the girl to death after she fell in love with a Muslim man and converted to Islam.

Kurdish authorities in the self-rule region to the east want to absorb the Yezidi areas, but a planned referendum on the issue is still months away.

Death toll in Iraq suicide blasts passes 250, G, 15.8.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2149065,00.html