Posted on 08/10/2007 2:40:23 PM PDT by bnelson44
A FORMER military commander said today British forces in Basra face a stark choice to curb the rising death toll - either retake the city or abandon it.
Colonel Bob Stewart, who led British forces in Bosnia, said casualties were mounting because the Army was not able to “dominate the ground”, which was allowing insurgents to operate in the area.
He said: “Either we retake control of that ground so that people can’t, for example, rocket the Basra base or put an improvised explosive device at very short notice on to a route that one of our strike forces is going down, or we abandon it.
“The choice is either retake it and dominate the ground or accept that we can’t.”
The retired officer added: “Perhaps we have been a bit too hasty in handing Basra back to the Iraqi army.”
Col Stewart said UK forces in Iraq were in a “pretty invidious position”.
He said: “If we re-dominate the ground, we are then in a position to stop the attacks happening, but then we delay our departure.
“If we don’t re-dominate the ground, we have to accept casualties.
“That’s pretty Catch-22 to me.”
Earlier this week, US officials suggested the British had effectively lost control of southern Iraq.
But US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox dismissed the claim and told Today: “That is a totally inconsistent characterisation with how we view our coalition partners, the Brits.
“They are professional, they are competent, they are very capable.”
Hat Tip: hotair.com
Need a surge.
Not without a highland regiment, they won't.
And PM Brown has passed the word, "pack yer bags boys, and hunker down, pretty soon we're out of town."
That's what happens when a socialist , with little or no sense of history ( a la 1938 ), takes power.
Look ye well, for it is but a preview of what we'll see with the "invidious Hillaree".
Just think how many lives we would have saved if the same policy as our Presidents were afloat in 1938 prior to the election of Winston Churchill as PM? Certainly millions of jews would have been saved , and we would not have had the necessity of the formation of Israel.
The Not-sees would have been stopped dead, in their tracks.
Brown just doesn't get it. "Peace in our rhyme," seems to be his calling card.Neville Chamberlain never had it as good.
A pox on Brown and all of his socialist cowens and eavesdroppers.
what US officials ? official press agent ? official senator ? official health inspector ? official water treatment plant operator ?
As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.
Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by “the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,” a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.
After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq “where things are going pretty well.”
But “it’s hard now to paint Basra as a success story,” said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.
...
“The British have basically been defeated in the south,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as “surrounded like cowboys and Indians” by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain’s remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601401_pf.html
The British have basically been defeated in the South
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1879398/posts
I wouldn't be so sure. The British took it from the Turks in 1914, then retook it, from the Iraqis, in 1940, then retook it yet again, from the Iraqis again, in 2003.
Despite all the patronizing talk a few years ago, out of the Brits, about we Colonials not knowing how to properly conduct a campaign in a manner that turns Islamic fanatics into friends and allies, the British haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in their attempts at nation building in Mesopotamia.
seems to me the only military solution would be to set an example and level the city without warning, killing everthing down to the last roach,( the "innocent" civilians must be siding with the Bad guys) This would set an example that their struggle is futile, if the scorched earth policy would have started in Fallujah then there would be peace today....IMO: war can not be won until the enemies will to resist is broken
“Re-dominate” implies that they had dominated the area in the past. This is not true. The Brits used a faulty, low-impact, hands-off approach from the get-go. They allowed corruption and intimidation to continue to be the main method of ‘government’ in Basra and other southern cities. Their main goal - as with the US Democrats - is to keep their soldiers safe. Nothing puts them in more danger than having them hole up in a palace and ‘keep watch’ while the thugs gain power and control.
No need to ask for them to come back and re-dominate. Not until there is a change of attitude... and I don’t think that’s likely.
Uk troop losses in Iraq are unfortnately proportionally higher than those suffered by the US. UK troops are carrying out offensive operations daily.
See this article:http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/british-forces-at-war-as-witnessed-by-an-american.htm
UK troops are taking the lead in Afghanistan. The problem is, our military is very overstretched taking a lead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Translation: "killing everythng including the last baby." Don't be afraid to cCall a spade a spade if that is what you what you mean. Is it?
What you have given here is a perfect illustration of the futility of world policing.
Being professional, competent, very capable, AND out of control of the situation are not mutually exclusive statements...
...especially if your government has been 1) unwilling to maintain the force levels necessary to dominate the area, and 2) has required such restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) that it effectively hamstrings your ability to use the force you do have available.
Translation: "killing everythng including the last baby." Don't be afraid to cCall a spade a spade if that is what you what you mean. Is it? [/quote]
I would never advocate the intentional killing of babies, I'm pro-life and I love dogs too. I'm trying to say that the war is against an entire culture, and the rules of war have changed, a nation can no longer tit for tat, "Bomb Berlin" or rock Hiroshima. To make matters worse, there is no official army to defeat, and the hearts and minds they are trying to win seem be shriveled and twisted, judging from what tidbits of info I get fed from the media. However, I'm sure it would appear differently when meeting face to face since one cant see into a black heart.
unfortunately the record of recent history (WWII+) reveals much success through impersonal steady wholesale destruction,( the enemy gets weary and loses hope) surgical hand to hand combat and W.H.&W has a bad success record ( the enemy can see results, and keeps up hope for success, until the USA gets weary and quits )
politically , I think , to win win a war in todays world, the nation would have to just spell out its own rules like, "This is what happens" ( total destruction of you and the city you control) and if babies get killed in the process it is your fault because you hid behind them"
If WWII was fought with the rules of war today, no doubt the axis would have won
Instead of genocide, they might try a counterinsurgency strategy aka General Petraeus.
Sheesh.
How about just pulling a couple of those Vulcan bombers out of mothballs and carpet-bombing the place? That’ll get their attention. All the destructive force of a surge without any friendly casualties. And probably no more “collateral” deaths than would happen with “dueling truck bombs.”
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