Posted on 08/07/2007 10:30:12 AM PDT by blam
British forces failed in Basra, says US official
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:56pm BST 07/08/2007
A senior US intelligence official in Baghdad has said British forces lost control of Basra by pulling out troops too quickly.
British commanders are preparing to hand over Basra Palace to the Iraqi army later this month
The result has been a security vacuum which has allowed the city's religious, tribal and criminal factions battle it out for control of the streets.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," the intelligence official told the Washington Post.
In a report to be published tomorrow in the influential American newspaper, the official said that a contingent of 500 British troops based at Basra Palace were "surrounded like cowboys and Indians."
Outside the palace walls, fighters allied to the three biggest Shia Muslim groups wage war with impunity.
British commanders are preparing to hand over Basra Palace to the Iraqi army later this month.
After that the 5,500 British soldiers in southern Iraq will all be based at Basra airport, which also houses international consulates and reconstruction workers.
The picture at the airport, which stands outside the city, is scarcely any better with 600 mortar and rocket hits recorded in the past four months.
British officials publicly state the timetable for drawing down troops from a peak of 40,000 during the invasion has been dictated by improvements in the Iraqi security forces.
But an ex-British defence official, now based in Baghdad, told the newspaper that America had criticised London's push to withdraw at the "highest levels."
America "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback."
In his meeting with President George W Bush at Camp David last week, Gordon Brown told the US leader that British troops hoped to hand over responsibility for Basra to Iraqi officials in the next few months.
But the process has been hampered by feuding within the Basra provincial government and with Baghdad.
Fadhilah, the ruling party in Basra, has condemned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party as a reincarnation of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime.
But the city's problems go wider than its dysfunctional politics.
The newspaper quoted from one think tank report that said the legacy of British rule in Basra was: "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighbourhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias."
The instability of the area was highlighted by the death of a British soldier in the province last night.
The Ministry of Defence said the soldier, from the 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, was killed when he came under fire during an operation in the Al Fursi district of the city last night.
The latest death brings the total number of British service personnel who have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 165.
Calling all Dhimmicratic presidential candidates! Hello? Hello? What is your response to this? Why won’t this happen when we pull out? Obama? Edwards? Kookcinich? Anyone?
“the intelligence official told the Washington Post.”
Wow - I wonder who this amazing intelligence official is. He seems to make up plenty of bollocks which 99% of the time never seem to be true.
Yawn
The Brits pulled back from Basra a long time ago. Any violence isn’t because of the present handover, it’s just a continuation of what began when they pulled back after their raid on the police station. The milita run the police in Basra. Maybe the Iraqi Army will be able to help with that. Who knows.
Urm...if we pulled back then why exactly are our troop still being killed? Including the death only yesterday of a British soldier? The news on the same day of our guys taking out an insurgent leader?
Are the media reporting on our guys playing computer games? I don’t think so. We’re still in the fight - and at some cost.
I wonder what cliche would be a fitting response to this? lol
Tom Ricks BS, for the most part.
Unless he has something to hide, is a liar or just a made up figure, why aren’t we learning the name of the “senior US intelligence official in Baghdad”?
I would put my money on super duper decoder ring goof Larry Johnson as the source. The guy that all the liberal media likes to go to as their source on all things military and intelligence, EVEN THOUGH HE ONLY SPENT 4 YEARS AT THE CIA.
Someone needs to find this “intelligence official” and hand over to Al Qaeda for his first (and final) starring role in a beheading video.
Even its true, you don’t treat an ally this way. And I doubt its true.
So does that mean if no source is mentioned that it’s not happening?
I’m tired of this traitor BS.
Does that mean if it is you blab it to the press with no clue of separating allies?
This was put out to separate... nothing more.
OK, but is it happening? Did the Brits blow it? Is Basra slipping into more disorder because of their withdrawal of forces?
The Pollyannas and Panglosses here only want to hear “good news.”
To some yes. But even if a source WAS mentioned, it would just open up other means of explaining away bad news. “Oh his brother’s half sister’s next door neighbor voted for Cater in the 1980 election - he’s biased - discount his information.”
Well, the Brits have spent a lot of time in that part of Iraq. If the situation is going south, I, for one, would like to know about it. Good or ill.
And you only want to post bad news. Who's sillier?
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