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...