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Iraq five years on: Our diary girl tells of her despair www.sundaymirror.co.uk

British pull-out from Basra delayed after rise in rocket attacks

Plan to reduce forces to 2,500 by next month put off indefinitely as Iraqi troops prepare to take on militias. By Kim Sengupta

Further British troop withdrawals from Iraq have been delayed indefinitely amid renewed rocket attacks on British forces in Basra, and a looming showdown between Iraqi government forces and Shia militias.

The Government has already admitted that a timetable set out by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, for the process of disengagement from Iraq has slipped. The remaining force was to have been cut from 4,100 to 2,500 by next month, but this reduction will not now take place. Instead the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, is expected to announce this week that the next rotation of troops, in May, will see roughly the same number arrive as those they are replacing.

Units in Basra who were initially told that their tour would finish early have now been informed that they must serve the full term of their deployment. The Duke of Lancaster's battle group has had its return date put back by five weeks. Since British troops pulled out of their last base in Basra city last September, the remaining force has been concentrated at the only British base left in Iraq, at Basra airport.

A review of troop numbers will take place later this year. But on the fifth anniversary of the invasion by US and British forces, the security situation in Basra city means there is little chance of Britain pulling out any more soldiers before 2009, even though Basra province, the last of the four put under British control after the invasion, was handed back to Iraqi control before the end of last year.

Major General Mohan al-Furayji, the Iraqi military commander who took over, is planning a major operation this summer against the Shia militias whose battle for control of the city cost many British lives. Under its agreement with the Iraqi government, Britain is obliged to provide support for what the general is calling "the final battle for Basra". But the British government is unwilling to step back into the quagmire of Basra, and a full-scale deployment in the city is unlikely. Asked what form the British contribution to his operations would take, Gen Mohan said: "The British have promised help, and I am sure they will provide it, but what exactly they do will be up to them."

At present, British troops are providing training for Iraqi troops, including house-to-house fighting – a key ingredient in any attempt to retake Basra from the militias. The procedure is called Mout (military operations in urban terrain) by the Americans and Fish (fighting in someone's house) by the British.

Such an offensive could help to increase security for the British force at the airport. The pullout from Saddam Hussein's old palace in Basra brought a lull in attacks and a sharp fall in British losses, but recently the volume of mortars and rockets has increased sharply. Last month, RAF Sergeant Duane Barwood, of 903 Expeditionary Air Wing, died in a rocket attack, the first British fatality in hostile action around Basra since last August.

The airport base once again reverberates almost daily to sirens warning of incoming rocket fire and to the roar of Phalanx anti-missile guns. New alarm systems have been installed, and soldiers now sleep in "Stonehenges", beds semi-encased in concrete and sandbags, defences which are said to have kept down the number of casualties. Soldiers have escaped serious injury, despite rockets landing inside accommodation blocks.

Previously British troops would go into Basra city to counter the source of attacks. Senior Aircraftman (SAC) Harry McLeman, 21, of 2 Squadron the RAF Regiment, said: "In the past we would go out there and dominate the ground. We can't do that now under the rules, and that does lead to a bit of frustration." The British authorities insist that going back into the city would only provoke the militias, and the current rate of rocket and mortar strikes continues to be lower than when the Basra Palace base was still manned.

Major General Barney White-Spunner, the British commander in Basra, said the situation inside the city was also getting better. "No one is saying it is ideal, and there is a long way to go. But the indications are that the militias are losing some of their influence, and there are divisions appearing among them."

More than 100 women have been tortured and beheaded for supposed "immorality" in Basra in the past 12 months without anyone being brought to justice. But the police chief, Major General Jalil Khalif, who took over at the same time as Gen Mohan, has begun investigating the killings. "He is very serious about this and this is a sign of good progress," said Gen White-Spunner. "Gen Mohan is doing a very good job, and there is also economic progress. But no one pretends there is not a lot more to be done. As to the future numbers of British troops here, that is a matter for the Government."
Undependent

Robert Fisk: How Ireland exorcised the ghost of empire

On the 92nd anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, our Middle East correspondent sees numerous parallels between the bloody, intractable conflicts in Ireland and Israel – and says that the war in Iraq has shown us the true value of neutrality

The Irish army has joined many UN peacekeeping missions, including that in Lebanon.

In November 1974, I was racing to Dublin from Belfast at more than 100mph when I was stopped at a police checkpoint. Sorry about the speed, I told the Garda officer who stopped me. "I'm going to be late for the Childers funeral!" The Garda looked at me – this was long before speeding became a serious crime in the Republic, and replied: "You will be as dead as Childers if you drive at that speed."

But the death of Erskine Hamilton Childers – Protestant president of Ireland, and son of the author of The Riddle of the Sands (who would be sacrificed in Ireland's very own civil war) – was not the real reason for my speed. I wanted to look at the last link with Padraig Pearse, the very last symbol of the leadership of the 1916 rebellion against British rule in Ireland, the battle that created the 20th-century blood sacrifice of Irish republicanism. And, sure enough, within an hour, I was sitting in the 12th-century Cathedral of St Patrick in Dublin, staring across the aisle at the tall, blind figure of Eamon de Valera. He stood as straight and tall as a round-tower, sightless behind his moon-size spectacles, depressed at his own great age; that, at least, is what his closest advisers later revealed, and he was to die within nine months.

But it was the flags hanging above Dev's head that I kept looking at. They were the colours of the long-forgotten Irish regiments of the British Army, the banners of those units – disbanded in 1920 – that fought for the Crown and whose own veterans of the 1914-18 war had been cruelly ignored in the newly independent country of their birth. But St Patrick's was a Protestant cathedral and the clergymen read the funeral service in impeccable English accents. And the flags – like so much of Ireland's ambiguous history, Dev was blind to their presence – suggested that Ireland might never shake free from the ghost of empire.

I guess I only realised the great, historic change in Ireland when the country first acknowledged that ambivalent, dangerous past: while Irishmen like Dev were fighting and dying for the Republic in Easter 1916, tens of thousands more were fighting and dying to protect Catholic France and to free little Catholic Belgium from the Kaiser's, largely Protestant, Germany, alongside the Protestant 36th Ulster Division.

A few Irish journalists remembered Ireland's sacrifice for King and Country before it was fashionable to do so. In the early 1970s – when I was Northern Ireland correspondent of The Times – I wrote about the old Irish-British regiments. But my article elicited not a scintilla of interest at a time when theProvisional IRA claimed to be following the blood sacrifice of Dublin in 1916, when Protestant paramilitaries claimed to be following the blood sacrifice of the Somme in 1916 and when the British, believing Northern Ireland was an "integral" part of the United Kingdom, made a claim that now sounds wearily familiar in our post-Iraq ears: that a British retreat from Belfast would mean – yes – civil war.

This Easter, the 92nd anniversary of the Rising, it is intriguing to look at the parallels that connect Ireland and the Middle East. The "Black and Tans", whom Churchill supported when they took their revenge on Irish civilians in 1920, were later sent – again with Churchill's support – to Palestine, where they became the "British Gendarmerie" and continued their reprisals against Arab and Jewish civilians to considerable effect. Decades later, John Hume (Ireland's only living statesman) wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel and "Palestine" should take a page out of Ireland's Good Friday Agreement. It was all about compromise, he said.

He was wrong. Israel's settlements on Palestinian Arab land in the occupied territories were as illegal as the Protestant settlements and the dispossession of the Catholics in 16th-century Ireland. A closer historical symbol was Fallujah. Not long after the US 82nd Airborne killed 14 Iraqi civilians during a protest in 2003, the people of Derry wanted to twin with Fallujah. Had not the British Parachute Regiment killed 14 Irish civilians in Derry (13 on "Bloody Sunday", another died of wounds) in 1972? The offer was never taken up – but the message was valid enough: we must deal with injustice before we look for "compromise".

The relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead received a multi-million-pound inquiry. The relatives of the Fallujah dead were twice put under US siege until their city was almost destroyed.

Yet if Ireland is now truly at peace, I suspect it is not just for the simple reasons: the overwhelming self-awareness among the killers, the realisation by all (including the Brits) that there could be no military victory, and the emergence of the "Celtic Tiger" south of the border. I think Ireland's "differentness" also has something to do with it, not least its traditional neutrality.

During the Second World War, Dev kept the 26 counties neutral. Sure, he stood aside from the great moral conflict of our times. Sure, he paid his respects – a silly, deeply wounding gesture – to the Dublin German legation on the death of Hitler. But he sent stranded British pilots back to the UK and never – despite British folklore – refuelled a U-boat. Though the Allies boycotted Eire's initial request to join the UN, her neutrality allowed her to play a noble (and costly) role in later UN operations. It was better to keep the world's peace, Ireland thought, than invade other countries. Hence the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war is being analysed with cool – albeit slightly smug – detachment in Ireland.

Ireland joined Nato's "Partnership for Peace" without a promised referendum, and its army now wears uniforms that are almost indistinguishable from the British variety. "Neutrality" was becoming an embarrassing word, until Iraq taught us just how dangerous alliances could be. Irish men and women must count themselves lucky that they stayed out of the "war on terror", as they did from the 1939-45 conflict.

Under the UN banner, the Irish army has now served in almost as many countries as the British Empire ruled. So much for the flags in St Patrick's Cathedral.
Independent

'My Beloved Country Is Torn Apart' Skynews

This week proves our retreat from Basra was one of Britain's great military disasters Mail

American warplanes join Iraqi troops in taking the fight to Shia militia




US aircraft attacked Shia militia in Basra for the first time in the current round of fighting as intense battles continued between supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr and tens of thousands of Iraqi forces in a crackdown personally supervised by Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

British troops, based at the city's airport, were kept away from the operation described by George Bush as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq".

American fighter jets dropped bombs on a mortar team and a militia stronghold in Basra, said Major Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman. The number of casualties was unknown.

As protests spread across Iraq, US aircraft also attacked Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, killing at least five civilians, according to Iraqi police and hospitals.

"There have been engagements going on in and around Sadr City. We've engaged the enemy with artillery, we've engaged the enemy with aircraft, we've engaged the enemy with direct fire," Major Mark Cheadle, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said later.

Defying a curfew, protesters again attacked the US-protected Green Zone in the capital with mortars and rockets. Elsewhere at least 22 people, including six civilians, were killed in fierce fighting in the southern cities of Mahmoudiya, Nasiriya - now held by elements of Sadr's Mahdi army - and Kut, according to reports from police and army officials cited by news agencies.

In Basra, Abdel Qader Jassim, the defence minister, admitted Iraqi security forces were "surprised" by the resistance they had met. At least 120 people, described by Iraqi commanders as the "enemy", were reported to have been killed and 450 wounded in four days of fighting.

Maliki, head of the Shia-dominated government, initially set a 72-hour deadline for fighters to give up their weapons. He extended that to April 8 yesterday and offered cash for any heavy weapons handed over in a clear indication that the offensive by 15,000 Iraqi troops and a similar number of police, would take longer than planned.

British defence officials said they were carefully monitoring a "developing operation likely to take time". British forces were providing medical and logistical support and air surveillance, they said.

But they made it clear that the British government and military commanders did not want to intervene. "The operation was planned, implemented, and executed by the Iraqis. We will only intervene if requested by the Iraqis," the MoD said.

As if to drive home the point, an official added: "It is their operation, their responsibility to bring security to Basra and Iraq as a whole."

Gordon Brown's spokesman said: "The fact that the Iraqi security forces are able to engage in this way in Basra is a recognition of the training and support that they have been given in recent years, that they are now able to take on a much greater degree of responsibility for their own security."

Bush praised Maliki on Thursday for his "bold decision" to strike at the militia in the country's oil-rich and port region but was careful not to urge Britain to intervene on the ground.

There are 4,100 British troops at the airport base. Brown suggested at the end of last year that the number could be reduced to 2,500 this spring.

The increase in violence means such a cut is unlikely. But it also raises the question of what is the point of having any there, a point not lost on defence chiefs and ministers in London. They are desperate for a convincing success by Iraqi forces even if it takes a few days more than first hoped.

There was little sign of that yesterday. Television showed masked fighters moving around freely in a south-western neighbourhood of Basra but little traffic.

Basra's citizens were reported to be complaining they were being deprived of food, medicines, electricity and water.

Maliki has said that the operation, nicknamed Sawlat al-Fursan or Charge of the Knights, is targeting criminals, not Sadr's militia, and has vowed "no retreat". But distinguishing the Mahdi army from criminals appears to be cutting little ice among Sadr's supporters, many of whom believe that US and Iraqi forces have used a seven-month ceasefire to prepare to attack them. Many Sadrists believe the Baghdad government is siding with the Badr organisation, a rival militia allied to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Sadr called for a political solution to the crisis on Thursday and an end to the "shedding of Iraqi blood". But the statement stopped short of ordering the Mahdi army to stop attacks. One of his representatives called Maliki "a hypocrite" during a Friday sermon yesterday in which he also called for an end to military operations, Reuters reported.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament called an emergency meeting but only 54 members of the 275-seat body succeeded in getting inside the fortified Green Zone.
guardian

Former defence chiefs reject claim soldiers do not want Iraq inquiry


By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor


Gordon Brown's claim that an inquiry into the war in Iraq would be a "distraction" for Britain's troops on the ground has been repudiated by some of the country's former defence chiefs.

The Prime Minister said an inquiry should take place when the soldiers' "work is over", although ministers have denied that means when the last British soldier has left Iraq.

But a number of Britain's former leading defence figures have rejected the Prime Minister's warnings that to hold an investigation now would undermine the troops, and supported the demands for an urgent inquiry into the war. Among them is Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who commanded British forces during the Falklands War.

The Government defeated demands in the Commons by Liberal Democrats and Conservative MPs for an inquiry this week, although 12 Labour MPs rebelled.

Gordon Brown has promised an inquiry but said now was not the time. Lord Bramall accused the Prime Minister of delaying it for political reasons.

"I don't think having an inquiry now would be a distraction. I think it is such a political hot potato the Government is not going to want it before the next election," he said. "There are two issues which people want to know about – why was there no planning for the aftermath of the war and how did we get involved in the first place."

Lord Bramall, who was opposed to the war, said that the Prime Minister failed properly to consult the chiefs of staff or his cabinet colleagues before supporting President George Bush in going to war.

"We now know that the prime minister didn't consult anybody in his own Cabinet before we were committed to war, and the Americans decided it as a reflex action to 9/11."

Lord Craig of Radley, the former air marshal of the RAF, backed Lord Bramall's demand for an immediate inquiry.

"I think it is very timely to have an inquiry before memories fade," said Lord Craig. "The fact that there remain some British troops still in Iraq – they are in an 'overwatch' role and not actively engaged – should not delay it.

Lord Craig said he did not agree that an inquiry would prove a distraction. "I would personally like to see an inquiry because I think there are lessons to be learnt. I do not think that it would be a distraction at all. The issue is about how we got involved in the war."

He said any inquiry would not involve those now on the ground in Iraq. "It would involve those who were involved in the decision at the most senior levels. The issue is how did we get into it, and what arrangements were made for after the invasion?"

The former head of the RAF rejected the assertion by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, that an inquiry now would affect soldiers "psychologically".

"I don't think an inquiry would have any psychological impact on the troops," said Lord Craig.

General Sir Mike Jackson also supported an inquiry. He said: "As I said in my book, it is a political decision at the end of the day but in the long run it would probably be a good thing."

The Prime Minister's official spokesman yesterday said that Mr Brown remained of the view that an inquiry now would be a "distraction", in spite of the calls by the defence chiefs.

In a letter to the Fabian Society, which had earlier asked him to hold a public inquiry, Mr Brown wrote: "There will come a time when it is appropriate to hold an inquiry. But while the whole effort of the Government and the armed forces is directed towards supporting the people and government of Iraq as they forge a future based on reconciliation, democracy, prosperity and security, we believe that is not now."
Independent

The Opium Brides of Afghanistan

In the country's poppy-growing provinces, farmers are being forced to sell their daughters to pay loans.
newsweek

Two British Marines killed by explosion in Afghanistan

British Marines in Afghanistan: two more fatalities have been reported - Times Online and agencies

Two Royal Marines have been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said today.

The soldiers, serving with 40 Commando Royal Marines, were conducting a patrol near Kajaki, in Helmand Province, shortly before 5pm local time when their vehicle was caught in an explosion yesterday. Medical treatment was provided before both soldiers were taken to the field hospital at Camp Bastion but, despite the best efforts of the medical team, both soldiers died as a result of their wounds.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It is with much sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that two soldiers serving with 40 Commando Royal Marines have been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan.

“Just after 1653 local time, the soldiers were conducting a patrol in the vicinity of Kajaki, Helmand Province, when the vehicle they were travelling in was caught in an explosion. Next of kin have been informed and there will be a 24 hour period of grace before further

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said one of the soldiers was pronounced dead on arrival at Camp Bastion and the second died shortly afterwards.

Task Force Helmand spokesperson Lt Col Simon Millar said: “Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the soldiers who have been killed in this incident.” timesonline

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Secret US plan for military future in Iraq

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Guardian

Petraeus defies Democrats with call to back war


By Leonard Doyle in Washington


The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, set himself on a collision course with the two Democratic contenders for the White House yesterday, asking for what amounted to an open-ended commitment to the war in Iraq. He warned that pulling out "too many troops too quickly" would jeopardise "fragile and reversible" security situation in the country.

General Petraeus said there had been "significant" but "uneven" improvements in security and said troop levels would need to be reassessed in the summer, by which time about 20,000 would be out. But he told the hearing to set the future US strategy in Iraq that he opposed further withdrawals and wanted "the flexibility to reserve the still fragile security gains our troopers have fought so hard and sacrificed so much to achieve".

His comments were immediately criticised by the Democratic Senator Carl Levin who said the Bush administration now had "a war plan with no exit strategy". Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are publicly committed to a rapid withdrawal of American forces. But addressing the Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, General Petraeus recommended a pause in drawdowns after mid-July, when the five extra brigades sent to Iraq for the "surge" will be out.

By that stage, there will be 140,000 troops left in Iraq, in 15 combat brigades, after the "surge" troops have been withdrawn.

General Petraeus called for a 45-day period of "consolidation and evaluation" as soon as levels were back at pre-buildup numbers. He was reflecting concerns in the military that insurgents will try to take advantage of the political uncertainty in the US, and fears that Iraq could descend into even greater chaos before the US election and beyond.

During an afternoon hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Barack Obama quizzed General Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. He said the US should set a timetable to pull its troops out of Iraq in order to pressure leaders there to establish peace.

"Increased pressure in a measured way, in my mind ... includes a timetable for withdrawal. Nobody's asking for a precipitous withdrawal, but I do think that it has to be a measured but increased pressure," he said.

Mrs Clinton used her six allotted minutes to restate her now familiar position. "I think it's time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops, start rebuilding our military, and focusing on the challenges posed by Afghanistan, the global terrorist groups and other problems that confront Americans," she said to scattered applause.

The race for the White House loomed large as the Republican candidate, John McCain, said it would be "reckless and irresponsible" to have a rapid withdrawal, and that pulling troops out now would be "a failure of moral and political leadership".

A protester stood up with a banner saying, "There's no military solution", as Mr McCain spoke, and was ejected from the hearing. Mr McCain sharply criticised the Bush Administration's "four years of mismanaged war", saying it had brought the US "almost to the point of no return". But, in a familiar refrain, he said the extra armed forces send to Iraq, "led to a new opportunity".

No more than three more combat brigades are expected to be pulled out of Iraq before George Bush leaves office next January, leaving more than 100,000 troops in the country when the next US president is sworn in.

General Petraeus has acknowledged that the recent Basra operation by the Iraqi army "was not adequately planned or prepared" and added that there was a danger rebel Shia groups may violate the cease-fire order of Muqtada al-Sadr.
Independent

Five years after fall of Baghdad, all-day curfew is imposed


By Kim Sengupta


The fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of the statute of Saddam Hussein – a symbol of US victory and might – was marked yesterday by death and destruction across the country and an admission from the White House that projected troop withdrawals would have to be delayed.

The Iraqi capital remains under curfew after another round of bloodshed in which mortar rounds landed in Sadr City, killing seven people, including two children, and injuring 24 others. Further gunfights in the sprawling Shia slum led to six more dying and 15 others being wounded.

The area is a centre of support for the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and came after days of clashes between his militia, the Mehdi Army, and Iraqi government forces in which 55 people have been killed and more than 200 injured. The Shia fighters vowed last nightthat retribution would be taken for the "unprovoked attack" in Sadr City which they claimed was the responsibility of the US forces.

Meanwhile in Washington, President George Bush was set to accept the plea of General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, for a "pause" in pulling out some of the thousands of troops sent in for the "surge". At the same time the operation is being portrayed as a vindication of American policy and a tacit admission of the fragility of the so-called stabilisation which is supposed to be taking place now.

A White House spokeswoman said President Bush was the type of leader "who listens to his commanders on the ground". US military sources say that the reality is that with the likelihood of renewed fighting between Shia factions it would be impossible to maintain a semblance of security without the presence of the thousands of extra American troops.

Much of Baghdad was a ghost town yesterday, with the government imposing a curfew from 5am to midnight on vehicles in an attempt to stop car bombings. Similar restrictions were imposed in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit. "This is not quite what we had expected five years on," a State Department official in Baghdad acknowledged.

The exact number of casualties of the Iraq war remains unclear in a state which continues to be close to anarchy. More than four million people, many from the intelligentsia who were supposed to rebuild the country, have fled abroad and Baghdad, a city with a shattered infrastructure, now has more than two million internal refugees who have fled from fighting in other parts of the country.

The pulling down of Saddam's statue in Firdous Square was supposed to have been an expression of popular joy at the downfall of a tyrant. The "impassioned populace", it turned out later, were people bused in from Sadr City, then called Saddam City. Ibrahim Khalil, who was in the crowd that day, said yesterday: "If history can take me back, I will now actually kiss the statue of Saddam. I am sorry that I played a part in pulling it down. I think now that was a black day for Baghdad. We got rid of Saddam, but now we have 50 Saddams. In his days we were safe. I ask Bush, 'where are your promises of making Iraq a better country?'"

Abdullah Jawad, another who took part in the destruction of the statue, said: "Let me see what has happened since then, just to me. I have had a brother killed and a niece who has been kidnapped and we have not seen for five months. Our country has been destroyed by foreigners, not just the Americans but the extremists who came to fight them on our soil.

"Saddam was a brutal man and we were supposed to be free when he went. But there is no freedom when you fear for your safety every day. When I see on television people in America and England say things are getting better in Iraq, I think, why don't you come and live here and see what it is really like?"
Independent

Pictures that should shame us all reveal the shabby way Britain treats its fallen heroes Mail