British mistakes in Basra

Independent on Sunday:

British commanders in Iraq made an astonishing secret deal with a Shia prisoner to withdraw from Basra which left the city at the mercy of criminal gangs, one of the UK's senior military officers serving in Iraq has said.

Colonel Richard Iron said the "understandable but inexcusable" deal was one of several "terrible mistakes" the British have made during their occupation of the south of the country.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday, Col Iron, who leads the teams mentoring the Iraqi army in central Basra, said the deal had included the release of 120 prisoners and had the effect of leaving the city in a lawless state.

"We have made some terrible mistakes in Iraq and it is only by talking about them that we will learn from them," said Col Iron, an expert on anti-insurgency. "Last autumn we made a mistake which was understandable but not excusable. A Shia prisoner, Ahmed al-Fartusi, said he could put a stop to the killings. We released 120 of their prisoners and withdrew out of town, but when we moved out, lawlessness took over. As 90 per cent of the attacks were against us, we thought if we moved out we would remove the source of the problem. But actually the Jaish al-Mahdi [the Mahdi army, known to British troops as the Jam] had been fighting us because we were the only obstacle to their total control."

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The deal never made much sense and it was pretty clear shortly after they left, that instead of protecting the people they had abandoned them. That is pretty much the opposite of what you should do in a counterinsurgency situation. It was not until the Iraqis came in and drove the thugs and religious zealots out that Basra was able to join the rest of the country in a revival.

The British made a similar bad deal in Helmand province in Afghanistan a few years ago and the territory had to be retaken. Their softly-softly approach has been a bad deal for the people and for the objectives of the coalition.