basra | ukwatch.net

Breaking Iraq and Blaming Iran

Ellie Keen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:10:09 +0000

British Black Ops and the Terror Campaign in Basra

Black Ops in Basra

In September of 2005, the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra, under British occupation since the 2003 invasion, was the scene of an extraordinarily controversial incident, which has since exposed the anatomy of the Anglo-American “dirty war” in Iraq, and in fact, the relevance to the wider “War on Terror”.

On September 19, 2005, two white men, dressed as Arabs, obviously suspicious to the British-trained Iraqi police, were pulled over in their car as they approached the city center of Basra. As the Independent reported, “the two men had been driving in an unmarked car when they arrived at a checkpoint in the city.” What followed was a confrontation between the two men and the Iraqi police, with shots fired and an Iraqi police officer killed and another wounded.[1] The men were then detained by the Iraqi police and taken to the central jail. As it turned out, the two men were members of the British elite SAS Special Forces.[2]

In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly representing Basra, stated that, “I could see that the UK forces were always provoking the Iraqi people in Basra. There are indiscriminate arrests and pressure,” and that a representative of the British embassy informed him that, “two UK soldiers were trying to stir up disturbances. Explosive materials were found in their car and they opened fire.” He further elaborated that, “what the UK forces are doing is not necessarily known by the Iraqi forces or coordinated with them through exchange of information. There are occupation forces, armoured vehicles, tanks and military aircraft in Basra. Moreover, there are members of the British intelligence present in Basra especially, since Basra is currently a sensitive and important area in Iraq. There are members of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and Mossad [word indistinct], as well as many institutions in this city.”[3]

British journalist Robert Fisk asked in an article he wrote on the subject, “what [were] our two SAS lads were doing cruising around Basra in Arab dress with itsy-bitsy moustaches and guns? Why did no one ask? How many SAS men are in southern Iraq? Why are they there? What are their duties? What weapons do they carry? Whoops! No one asked.”[4]

The Great Escape

An astounding part of the story about the two British SAS agents is not simply what they were up to in Basra, but what happened to them after being arrested. Once arrested, they were questioned by Iraqi police, and as a Basra government official stated, “They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and to ask their commander about their mission.”[5]

Within hours of the arrests, ten British tanks backed by helicopters stormed the jail where the men were held and destroyed the building, freeing roughly 150 Iraqi prisoners in the process.[6] However, the British government initially stated that the men were released as a result of negotiations. British Defense officials “insisted they had been talking to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of the men, but acknowledged a wall was demolished as British forces tried to “collect” the two prisoners.”[7] The Basra Provincial Governor described the incident as “barbaric, savage and irresponsible.”[8]

Later, the story was changed again, as the British Army reported that they staged the “rescue” because after the two soldiers were arrested, they were “then handed over to a militia group,” and likely as a result of British pressure, “Iraq’s interior ministry ordered the police force in Basra to release the soldiers but that order was ignored.” Brigadier John Lorimer, who led the operation, said, “that under Iraqi law the soldiers should have been handed over to coalition authorities, but this failed to happen despite repeated requests.”[9] It should be noted, however, that the Iraqi law being referred to was written up by the Anglo-American Coalition Provisional Authority upon its initial occupation of the country in 2003.

As John Pilger noted in the New Statesman, “Although reported initially by the Times and the Mail, all mention of the explosives allegedly found in the SAS men’s unmarked Cressida vanished from the news. Instead, the story was the danger the men faced if they were handed over to the militia run by the “radical” cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.” He further reported on how what was found in the car included, “weapons, explosives and a remote-control detonator.”[10]

It is an amazing display of Orwellian double-think for the British to be able to be responsible for inciting terror, orchestrate a massive assault on an Iraqi police station with tanks and helicopters, and yet, somehow spin it so that it looks like a heroic act of patriotism of the kind depicted in the classic World War 2 film, The Great Escape, where British and American POWs undertake a massive escape from a German POW camp. Although, far from a heroic escape, or valiant rescue, this was an overt military operation aimed at returning British terrorists into British hands.

A month after the “rescue” operation, the British government “officially apologized to Iraq over the recent Basra events,” and a British statement “said that London apologizes to the Iraqi people and government, Basra residents, city and province councils and the police force over mistakes made by the British.”[11]

The Investigation Hits a Dead End

The day after Britain officially apologized for terrorizing Basra, a “senior British military police officer in Iraq involved in the investigation of alleged abuse of Iraqi civilians by soldiers [has] been found dead at a camp in Basra.” Captain Ken Masters, commander of 61 Section of the Special Investigations Branch (SIB), “was found in his bed at the airport at the weekend.” The Independent quoted Defense sources as saying the death was “not due to hostile action and also not due to natural causes.” Friends referred to the incident as a “total surprise,” and it was reported that no suicide note or firearms were found.[12]

Masters’ job consisted of investigating all serious incidents involving the British military in Iraq, and as the Times reported, “Captain Masters’s biggest current investigation was ordered after the incident on September 19 when two SAS troopers had to be rescued by British troops in armoured vehicles after they had been arrested by Iraqi police. During a day of violent confrontations, the Iraqi authorities in Basra claimed that seven Iraqis were killed and 43 injured, many of them police.” The article elaborated on Masters’ duties, stating, “Compensation to the families of alleged Iraqi victims who died during the fracas depended on the official investigation being carried out by Captain Masters and his team.”[13]

The British Ministry of Defense “said the circumstances surrounding the death on Saturday of Captain Ken Masters, 40, were not suspicious.”[14] The day before Masters died, the official line put forward by the British military of the Basra incident was that, “the SAS had been ordered to carry out surveillance operations against several members of the Iraqi police, who were believed to be responsible for torturing prisoners at the notorious Jamiyat prison in Basra.”[15]

Later, the official line put out after an investigation was that Masters did indeed kill himself, due to work pressures. Masters, who was a husband and father of two, was due to return home from tour five days after he apparently killed himself.[16]

The Christmas Day Massacre

On December 25, 2006, the British again stormed the Basra headquarters of the serious crimes unit, the same police station where the SAS officers were held the previous September. The British killed seven men and destroyed the building, which “had been demolished with explosives after the pre-dawn assault by about 1,000 troops.” Further, “The operation came three days after British soldiers arrested the head and other members of the serious crimes unit on suspicion of involvement in the kidnap of two SAS soldiers and the murder of several Iraqis last year.” The “kidnap” being referred to here is an Orwellian double-speak version of the events describing the arrest of the two SAS officers for injuring and killing Iraqi police.

The official reason for the assault was that the serious crimes unit headquarters, “has long been accused of involvement in murders, attacks on coalition forces and kidnappings in the southern oil city, where rival Shia factions are fighting for control,” and that, “The British military acted after learning that some of the prisoners, all suspected criminals, inside the police station faced imminent execution.” Captain Dunlop stated, “We had clear directions from the prime minister and governor to dissolve the unit.”[17]

Three days earlier, on December 22, 2006, the “senior Iraqi policeman who allegedly masterminded the abduction of two SAS soldiers last year was arrested yesterday following a major security operation in Basra.” In other words, the senior Iraqi officer who was present for the arrest, detention and questioning of the SAS soldiers was taken into British custody. The Telegraph reported that, “Under cover of thick fog, 800 British troops in tanks and armoured vehicles swooped on the home of the policeman and six other Iraqi officers.” The Telegraph again re-wrote history when they reported that, “The two SAS troopers were allegedly minutes away from being sold to insurgents and certain death after they were abducted by rogue police at a checkpoint in the Jamiat area of Basra on Sept 19 last year.”[18]

In reaction to the storming and total destruction of the Serious Crimes Unit HQ in Basra, the Basra Council “described the raid as illegal and has suspended co-operation with the military,” and called the raid “provocative.” Notably, “A Ministry of Defence spokesman said 1,000 troops were involved and hundreds of seized files and computers have been taken as evidence.”[19] What exactly was contained on those files and computers? As reported by the New York Times, the “battle lasted nearly three hours. There were no British casualties, but the streets around the station were littered with bombed-out cars and rubble.”[20]

Considering the fact that the mainstream media and British officials put massive spin on and manipulated the facts of the story about the SAS soldiers in relation to this story, it raises the question as to what they may be lying about in relation to the actual storming of the prison once again. What exactly was the purpose of this massive undertaking? Surely, the police forces in Iraq are corrupt and influenced by local militias; it is, after all, a state of war. But, it seems that as long as the corruption is in line with Anglo-American strategy in the region, a blind-eye is turned. Was the real problem that the Serious Crimes Unit was actually doing its job, investigating the Basra incident involving the SAS? This could explain why the computers and files were taken. The current official line that the SAS were investigating corrupt officials can support why they were dressed as Arabs. But as to why they were heavily armed, had explosives and detonators and were the first ones to shoot during the confrontation with the police, this explanation does not stand up to scrutiny.

Also, to storm the jail under the pretense of preventing torture and executions is highly hypocritical considering what the Coalition is guilty of in Iraq and around the world. So, it begs the question, what else is being lied about in this situation, and for what purpose?

The British Follow the Paper Trail

Following very much in line with previous British actions in Basra, from the 2005 “rescue” of black-ops SAS state-terrorists, to the 2006 destruction of the jail, “rescue” of its computer records and arrest of its leading officials, the British again made their destabilizing presence known. On March 4, 2007, “Iraqi special operation forces and British troops swept into an Iraqi intelligence ministry building” in Basra, and, “found prisoners with signs of torture, British officials said.” Interestingly, “All 30 prisoners escaped during the surprise raid, which was triggered by information gleaned from suspects arrested hours earlier in another sweep.” The public explanation for the raid is very much the same as the previous Basra raid a year earlier, which actually appeared to be an operation aimed at retrieving information about and arresting all the officials involved with the previous year’s arrest of the two SAS soldiers. Officially, this 2007 raid was undertaken to “rescue” abused prisoners.

Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, referred to the raid as an “unlawful and irresponsible act.” As the Washington Post reported, “A British military statement said its forces acted quickly because it had gained information hours earlier that presented a high threat.”[21] According to the Telegraph, the British captured “an alleged death squad leader and four other militants.” The article further reported that, “A British military spokesman said it had not been possible to warn the provincial authorities before the raid because it was ordered just hours earlier, on the basis of information received from a detained insurgent.” About the prisoners that escaped during the raid, “the British denied they were deliberately freed, saying they “regrettably” took advantage of the chaos to make their escape.”[22]

The Iraqi Prime Minister released a statement saying that he “has ordered a prompt investigation into the incident of breaking into the security complex headquarters in Basra and he affirmed the need to punish those who have carried out this unlawful and irresponsible act.”[23] The BBC reported on the incident, stating that, “The British government said the Army’s main bases in the city [of Basra] would be closed and the total British strength reduced by several thousand over time,” and that, “The theory behind this is that the Iraqi forces are now ready to take over. The raids over the weekend were indeed led by the Iraqi security forces – but targeted other parts of the Iraqi security forces.”[24]

The question must be asked: What was the mission really about? Surely, and sadly, the only unique prison in Iraq would be one where torture does not occur, regardless of who is in control of it. And to say certain facilities under Iraqi government control are corrupt and involved in supporting terrorists and death squads is a diversionary point, as the Iraqi government itself is under Anglo-American control. The fact that the Iraqis were not told of this raid not only demonstrates that the British (and Americans) act above the law, but that the raid was something they did not want to have known by the Iraqis. There was a purpose behind the raid on the prison. It is important to note that it occurred a mere three months after the previous raid in December of 2006, in which the British seized “hundreds of files” and took computers “as evidence,” likely related to the British SAS incident. Since this was the Iraq intelligence unit in Basra, could it be that the previously destroyed Serious Crimes Unit had passed along some intelligence to the Iraqi Intelligence Ministry building? It would seem likely. And so, it would also seem to be likely that the British would follow the paper trail of evidence with their trail of terror.

The British Withdraw?

In an August, 2007 article, the Washington Post reported that, “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.” The article quoted a think tank called the International Crisis Group (ICG) as saying that Basra 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.”[25]

In September of 2007, amid widespread disenchantment among the British for their participation in the Iraq war and occupation, the British “pulled out of Basra Palace, the onetime southern residence of Saddam Hussein that became the symbol of the UK’s role in the US-led invasion.” As the Independent reported, “The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.” The British were to remain at Basra airport only, which is on the outskirts of the city, “while what remains of the British-controlled south is handed over to the Iraqi authorities.” One Iraqi who is a resident of Basra was quoted as saying, “One thing we are uneasy about are rumours that the Americans may come to Basra to replace the British. We see what is happening in Baghdad and we don’t want that here.”[26]

On September 12, 2007, it was reported by the Independent that, “British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a “proxy war”,” and that, “The deployment came within a week of British forces leaving Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city, and withdrawing to the airport for a widely expected final departure from Iraq.” The move to the Iranian border was apparently at the request of the Americans, as “The move came as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, made some of the strongest accusations yet by US officials about Iranian activity. General Petraeus spoke on Monday of a “proxy war” in Iraq, while Mr Crocker accused the Iranian government of “providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state”.”[27]

In December of 2007, the British officially “handed over control of Basra Province to Iraq’s government,” and as the New York Times reported, “American officials believe the transfer of control will be a serious test of Iraqi political and military leaders to maintain Basra — a strategically vital and politically fractious southern province, and the port city of the same name — under Iraqi control, and prevent Iran or Shiite militias from gaining too much influence.” However the British would remain in a “support role” in the Iraqi province that “holds most of Iraq’s proven petroleum reserves.” A British General was quoted as saying, “We will continue to help train Basra security forces.”[28]

So was the British departure from Basra really a drawing down of participation in the war? Was it for political legitimacy within the UK? Or, was there another reason behind this action? Basra’s strategic importance cannot be underestimated, being in the south of Iraq, the most oil-rich province, close to Iran and in the heart of the Gulf.

The British used to govern Iraq under a League of Nations mandate from its “independence” from the Ottoman Empire until 1932. In 1940, an anti-British nationalist leader, Rashid Ali, came to power in Iraq. After engaging in closer relationships with fascist Italy and quietly with Nazi Germany, he was replaced in 1941 as Prime Minister. A few months later, he orchestrated a coup d’état and returned to power. The British immediately responded by seizing Basra, what was seen, even then, as a vital supply route. The British also had a major military base in Basra. Significantly, also in 1941, Iran’s King was developing close ties to Germany. Britain was afraid of Iran’s oil reserves falling out of the hands of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now known as BP – British Petroleum), and into hands of Germany. So, a couple months after Britain took back Iraq, the British and USSR launched a joint invasion of Iran. The British of course invaded from the south in Iraq, from their bases, notably their base in Basra.

Could this glimpse into the past present any understanding of the present British situation in Basra? Considering that the British went from Basra and moved to a base on the Iranian border, it seems likely. But why leave Basra? Well, if the strategy of tension in the Middle East is directed at destabilizing the region, spilling civil war and conflict across borders,[29] perhaps it might be necessary for the British to step back and see if Basra collapses in on itself. Or perhaps, there would be some outside help in Basra’s implosion, but without the British forces present, foreign involvement would not be discussed as a cause of the problem, and could therefore be discussed as a possible solution to any implosion.

The Battle of Basra

Three months after handing control of Basra over to the Iraqis, a large battle was underway. The western media tenaciously referred to it as the “Battle of Basra.” On March 24, 2008, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went to Basra to oversee the planned Iraqi offensive to rid Basra of its Mahdi Army militia in key Sadrist neighborhoods of those loyal to Mahdi Army leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. This was the first major operation undertaken by the Iraqi Army.

The Battle lasted until March 31, resulting in hundreds of dead and significantly hundreds more wounded. During the battle, British papers such as the Times were calling for Britain to abandon its withdrawal timetable from the base outside of Basra, in order to remain in case of a need to “rescue” Basra.[30]

The Iraqi government forces were surprised by the resilience of the Mahdi Army in Basra, and were suffering a great deal at the defenses of the militia. This resulted in American forces having to be drawn into the battle to support the Iraqi government forces. US warplanes were used, ultimately killing civilians, and even the British were drawn into the fighting directly from their base at the airport. The Independent reported that, “If US and British forces engage in direct military action on a wide scale with the Sadrist militia, then Mr Sadr could call for a general uprising, which would engulf all of Shia Iraq in war.”[31] According to the BBC, “There have also been a small number of both British and American special forces on the ground” in Basra during the Battle.[32]

It was on March 29, that Muqtada al-Sadr called for a ceasefire between the Shi’a militia and Iraqi forces. The Independent reported that, “The Sadrists’ ceasefire was unexpected since they have prevented government forces from advancing in Basra and Baghdad. Hours before the announcement, militiamen stormed the state television station in Basra, forcing the guards to flee and setting armoured vehicles on fire.”[33] As it turned out, the ceasefire between Iraqi government officials and Sadr’s militia was brokered by Iran. USA Today reported that, “Iran has close ties with both al-Sadr’s movement and [Prime Minister] al-Maliki, who spent several years in exile there,” and that, “the agreement was brokered by the commander of Iran’s al-Quds Brigade, which is considered a terrorist organization by Washington.”[34]

What was Behind the Battle of Basra?

How exactly did the Battle of Basra begin, other than the initial attack by government forces? What was the reasoning and purpose behind this major offensive? Surely, a puppet government such as Iraq would never undertake such an operation without in the very least, the support of the Americans or British, but even more likely, at the direction of the Anglo-Americans. The Battle of Basra must be put into a wider context.

A week before the Battle broke out, Vice President Dick Cheney took a surprise tour of the Middle East. If George Bush is the “Decider” as he once proclaimed, Dick Cheney is certainly the “Destabilizer,” not to mention, the “Decider’s Decider.” On March 17, Cheney made a surprise, unannounced visit to Iraq, where his “first meeting was a classified briefing with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq who met him at the airport.” He also met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Among many of the possible topics of discussion during Cheney’s trip was that, “The Iraqis do not yet have a law for sharing the nation’s oil wealth among the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, a law that the Bush administration believes will trigger multinational energy companies to invest in exploration and production in Iraq,” as well as, “a plan for new provincial elections. Iraq’s presidential council, which must give its nod to laws passed by the Iraqi parliament, rejected a plan for new elections last month, shipping it back to the legislature.” The rejection was seen as “a setback to the U.S. campaign for national reconciliation, [which] came despite Cheney’s last-minute phone call to the main holdout on the three-member panel: Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite.” Cheney’s trip included visits to Oman, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Palestinian territories.[35]

Among much of the discussion regarding Cheney’s trip to the Middle East was rumours of preparing for a possible war with Iran. As the Telegraph reported, “Mr Cheney, whose nine-day tour has included stops in Turkey, the Gulf and Afghanistan, insisted that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.”[36] A surge of violence in Basra would provide Cheney with a convenient excuse to point the finger at Iran for “troublesome meddling” in Iraq.

It is important to take a closer look at possible reasons for the outbreak of violence in Basra in late March, a mere nine days after Cheney’s visit to Iraq. The main reasons, (none of which include the Iraqi government’s “decision” to displace the Mahdi Army), include scoring political points on the war issue in domestic American politics, passing an Iraqi oil law, pressing forward with provincial elections, building the case or creating a pretext for a war with Iran, and justifying a permanent occupation of Iraq.

Scoring Political Points

At Congressional hearings in early April following the Basra offensive, where Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and General David Patraeus testified, Senator Ted Kennedy asked Crocker, “Were you at any meetings with the Vice President… where the issue of the Basra invasion took place?” Crocker responded, “Um, that was not discussed.” Kennedy pressed, “It wasn’t discussed at all, during the Vice President’s visit to Baghdad, ah, that the, the possibility of Maliki uh, going into Basra, was not discussed, you were not at any meetings where the Vice President was present or where this was discussed in his presence?” Crocker again replied, “Uh, it was not discussed in any meeting I attended, no, sir.” Kennedy then looked to General Patraeus, “Ah, General?” Patraeus replied, “Same, Senator.”

Ray McGovern, former 27-year CIA analyst who delivered several daily intelligence briefings to US Presidents, stated that, “I think Kennedy knows more than the rest of us know. I think it’s very clear that if you’re looking for why Maliki went off half-cocked for a big offensive down against Moqtada al-Sadr in southern Iraq, it was because Cheney had told him to. And I would be shocked if Cheney didn’t tell Patraeus and Crocker what he was going to tell Maliki.” He continued, “Patraeus has hundreds of troops there [in Basra] embedded with the Iraqi forces, he had to know exactly what was going on. He just couldn’t stop it. Why? Well, well he didn’t want to stop it because Cheney is running things. The plan was to get down there into the south to show that this fellow [Maliki] can take the initiative and be – well, the President was instructed two days later to say this was a ‘defining moment’ – a defining moment of the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki. Well, yeah, it was, but not the way they meant.” McGovern elaborated, “And so Patraeus and Crocker could come before Congress and say, ‘look, you told us – you told us last time that the Iraqis had to take more initiative, so that we’re not doing the fighting. Well, look, just what happened, they cleaned out the whole of southern Iraq. And they still played that theme… [that] Maliki took the initiative.” He further stated, “Ironically, they wanted to give the initiative to Maliki because they thought it might succeed, but then they wanted to give the initiative to Maliki because it failed miserably.”[37]

The Oil Law

Iraq has failed to pass an oil law for some time. Basra, the most oil rich province in Iraq, is of vital importance in any decision made regarding an oil law. In 2001, before 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Vice President Cheney met in secret with executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc., in what was known as the Cheney Energy Task Force.[38]

Interestingly, Judicial Watch, a public interest group and government watchdog, sued to get Commerce Department documents pertaining to Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force meetings. The documents contained “a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and ‘Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts’.” Further, “The Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) documents likewise feature a map of each country’s oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the projects, costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date.”[39]

Months after the Battle at Basra and Cheney’s visit, the International Herald Tribune reported that, “The Iraqi Oil Ministry is negotiating with Royal Dutch Shell on a joint venture deal to develop natural gas associated with oil production in southern Iraq,” and that, “The head of the Basra Economic Development Committee, Munadhil Abid Khanjar, said that Shell had approached the Oil Ministry last December with its plans and since then meetings have been held outside Iraq.”[40] Two days later, it was reported that, “Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.” The main oil companies are “Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — [and they], along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.” It was further reported that, “The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India.”[41]

So, if Cheney’s visit to Iraq was to do with oil, then, Mission Accomplished. However, it doesn’t seem likely that this was the reasoning behind the outbreak of violence in Basra. Surely, it was a topic of discussion between Cheney and Iraqi officials, however, it does not account for a push for violence in Basra, unless it is an issue of legitimizing a permanent occupation of the oil rich Basra province under the auspices of “stabilizing” the volatile region, but in reality, maintaining a presence there to protect the oil fields for Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon, and BP.

The Provincial Elections

In February of 2008, it was reported that, “Iraq’s three-member presidency council has rejected a draft law to hold provincial elections and returned it to parliament,” and that, “The bill is expected to boost the powers of the provinces to launch their own economic projects with the money allocated by the central government.”[42] Two days after Cheney’s visit, “Iraq’s three-member presidential council on Wednesday approved legislation that sets a time frame for provincial elections, a development that Iraqi lawmakers called an important step toward reconciling rival factions in the divided government.”[43] This appears to be following the directions of the Council on Foreign Relations, among many other think tanks, in balkanizing Iraq, or as they put it, reverting to a federal system. Although pushing for a federal system for Iraq came after initial calls for a “three state solution,” as was the title of a Leslie Gelb article in the New York Times, who is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.[44] The article he wrote called for the Balkanization of Iraq based upon the model of Yugoslavia, which, incidentally, was fractured largely through Western-financed, Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in Bosnia and Kosovo.[45]

President Bush said in a speech on March 27, 2008, during the Battle of Basra, that, “Last week, leaders reached agreement on a provincial powers law that helps define Iraqi federalism, and sets the stage for provincial elections later this year. And that’s an important piece of legislation because it will give Iraqis who boycotted the last provincial election — such as Sunnis in Anbar or Ninewa provinces — a chance to go to the polls and have a voice in their future.”[46]

Reverting to a more federal system will allow for the political fracturing of Iraq. Not only will it separate the regions likely according to Sunni, Kurd and Shi’a factions, but it will allow bigger powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to not have their influence threatened by any actual strengthened and united Iraqi federal government.

As the Berkeley Daily Planet reported after the Battle of Basra, Muqtada al-Sadr, as a nationalist, “supports a unified Iraq with a strong central government,” while Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has “pushed for dismembering Iraq into separate provinces dominated by the country’s three major ethnic groups—Sunnis in the west, Kurds in the north, and Shiites in the south. Since most of the oil reserves are in the south, as is the country’s only port, whoever controls the south essentially controls 70 percent of Iraq’s economy.” Further, the provincial election law that was passed “sets up an October election in which the various provinces will vote on whether they want to remain a unified country or splinter into separate provinces.”[47] The author stipulates that Maliki attacked Basra in an effort to win political points in driving out the militias in order to win the Basra provincial election come October, and thus, retain control over the oil reserves.

However, my problem with this hypothesis is that in the originally proposed recommendations from the Council on Foreign Relations in turning Iraq into a federal system, they state that oil laws are to be the prerogative of the federal government, not provincial.[48] Not to mention, Maliki has slim, if any chance, of ever winning the south of Iraq. Thus, it may be more likely that in attacking Basra, it creates great resentment among Shi’as and thusly, a federal political system will be so fractured and divided that it will likely lead to separation naturally. If the Iraqi provinces separated of their own accord, it would be harder to point the finger at the US for the balkanization of Iraq, which has long been a strategic aim.[49] [50] [51] When the US Senate passed a resolution in support of a federal system as a solution for Iraq, the Arab world, and even the Iraqi Prime Minister denounced it as an attempt to divide Iraq. But, if the Iraqi Parliament passes a law for provincial elections, which could lead to fracture, it is a “break through for democracy.”

Promoting War With Iran

The Financial Times reported prior to Cheney’s trip to the Middle East that, “On Iran, the vice-president is expected to urge countries in the region to do more to isolate Tehran diplomatically and economically,” and that, “The trip comes at a time of renewed interest in policy towards Iran after a senior US military commander resigned last week because of perceived differences with the White House over the issue. Admiral William Fallon was widely considered a dovish voice on Iran and his departure sparked speculation that hawkish figures such as Mr Cheney were regaining the upper hand over the issue.”[52] The day after Cheney visited Saudi Arabia, the government began preparing “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors.”[53]

The outbreak of violence in Basra delivered the perfect opportunity to continue doing what the administration has been doing for so long, blaming Iran for the violence in Iraq. Amid the heated Battle of Basra, on March 27, it was reported that, “The U.S. military stated Iran is orchestrating the Shi’ite insurgency in southern Iraq and outbreaks of violence throughout the country,” and a Defense Department spokesman stated that, “There has been a persistent and troublesome meddling by Iran.”[54]

A month later, the US envoy to the United Nations blamed Iran “for fueling recent clashes in the southern Iraqi city of Basra and in Baghdad, saying Tehran was training and supplying weapons to militias.” Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and signatory to several PNAC documents, stated, “The recent clashes between criminal militia elements and Iraqi government forces in Basra and Baghdad have highlighted Iran’s destabilizing influence and actions.”[55] However, what he (intentionally) failed to realize is that Sadr had declared a ceasefire long before the Battle of Basra began, from August of 2007, (interestingly at the time that Bush’s “surge” strategy in Iraq became a “success” in reducing violence), and that the Battle began when the Iraqi government attacked Sadr strongholds in Basra. Khalilzad also mistakenly blamed Iran for being a destabilizing force. Yet, it was Iran that brokered the ceasefire, making Iran the most stabilizing force in the region.

On June 6, 2008, it was reported that, “Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.” The report continued, “J. Scott Carpenter, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, recalled in an interview that senior Defence Department (DoD) officials and the Joint Chiefs used the escalation issue as the main argument against the Cheney proposal,” and that Cheney had proposed “launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran.” It further stated that, “The question of escalation posed by DoD officials involved not only the potential of the Mahdi Army in Iraq to attack, Carpenter said, but possible responses by Hezbollah and by Iran itself across the Middle East,” and that, “Cheney’s proposal was perceived as a ploy to provoke Iranian retaliation that could used to justify a strategic attack on Iran.”[56]

Cheney’s plan to provoke Iran through airstrikes on camps in Iran was rebuked by the Pentagon, and the attempt at scaring the world with threats of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons was rebuked by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of all 16 US intelligence agencies in December of 2007, which said that Iran gave up attempting to build nuclear weapons in 2003.[57] It was even reported that Cheney tried to suppress the NIE from becoming public for over a year.[58] It seemed as if provoking a situation within Iraq was the best option for Cheney. However, because Iran acted quickly in ending the violence and brokering a ceasefire, Cheney’s plan backfired.

Permanent Occupation

Having a massive outbreak of violence in Iraq could have provided an excellent reason to justify a permanent occupation of Iraq. On April 8, 2008, a week after the fighting in Basra reached a ceasefire, the Guardian reported that, “A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country,” and that the “secret” and “sensitive” agreement was dated “March 7,” and, “is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without time limit.”[59]

On June 5, it was reported by the Independent that, “A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November,” and that, “Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.” Further, “Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.” The article reported that, “The Iraqi government wants to delay the actual signing of the agreement but the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord.”[60]

Important to note is that, “The agreement artfully drafted by US officials will not only jeopardize the Iraqi sovereignty but will also give the US military the right to use Iraq as a launching pad for attacks against other countries, including Syria and Iran.”[61] As of June 19, “Iraqi and U.S. officials are seeking a compromise on the pending issues over a new security agreement between the two countries.”[62]

Concluding Remarks

Understanding the anatomy of the conflict that has raged in Basra since 2003 is a pivotal study in understanding the wider “War on Terror.” The British, for nearly a century maintaining a destabilizing presence in the region, notably in Basra, have not given up their Empire’s long-standing tradition of “Divide and Conquer.” From the two SAS terrorist, to their dramatic “rescue,” the destruction of the Serious Crimes Unit and eventually, the liquidation of the Basra Intelligence Ministry, the British have maintained a position of being above the law and beyond moral restraint.

Notes

[1] Helen McCormack, The day that Iraqi anger exploded in the face of the British occupiers. The Independent: September 20, 2005:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-day-that-iraqi-a…

[2] BBC, Iraq probe into soldier incident. BBC News: September 20, 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4264614.stm

[3] Global Research, Iraqi MP accuses British Forces in Basra of “Terrorism”. Al Jazeera: September 20, 2005:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050920…

[4] Robert Fisk, When nature and man conspire to expose the lies of the powerful, the truth will out. The Independent: September 24, 2005:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-when-nature-and-man-c…

[5] Times Online, British forces break soldiers out of Basra jail. Times Online: September 19, 2005:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article568439.ece

[6] Ibid.

[7] AP, British soldiers free two from Basra jail. USA Today: September 19, 2005:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-09-19-british-basra_x.htm

[8] Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, British Smash Into Iraqi Jail To Free 2 Detained Soldiers. The Washington Post: September 20, 2005:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR200509…

[9] BBC, Iraq probe into soldier incident. BBC News: September 20, 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4264614.stm

[10] John Pilger, John Pilger blames Basra on the British. The New Statesman: October 3, 2005:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200510030009

[11] Michel Chossudovsky, Britain “apologizes” for terrorist act in Basra. Global Research: October 15, 2005:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1094

[12] Kim Sengupta, Senior military investigator found dead in Iraq. The Independent: October 17, 2005:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/senior-military-inve…

[13] Michael Evans, Top military investigator is found dead in Basra. The Times Online: October 17, 2005:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article579399.ece

[14] Richard Norton-Taylor, Investigator found dead at Basra base. The Guardian: October 17, 2005:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/oct/17/military.iraq

[15] The Age, Captured SAS soldiers ‘spied on drill torturer’. The Age: October 17, 2005:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/iraq/captured-sas-soldiers-spied-on-drill-...

[16] Ian Herbert, Suicide in Basra: The unravelling of a military man. The Independent: July 31, 2006:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/suicide-in-basra-the…

[17] Telegraph staff, British troops storm ‘execution prison’. The Telegraph: December 25, 2006:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/migrationtemp/1537806/British-troops-storm-‘execution-prison’.html

[18] Thomas Harding, ‘Rogue’ police officers seized in Basra. The Telegraph: December 23, 2006:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1537714/%27Rogue%27-police-off…

[19] BBC, Iraqi police ambushed near Basra. BBC News: October 29, 2006:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6097180.stm

[20] Marc Santora, British Soldiers Storm Iraqi Jail, Citing Torture. The New York Times: December 26, 2006:
http://www.truthout.org/article/british-soldiers-storm-iraqi-jail-citing…

[21] Sudarsan Raghavan, Basra Raid Finds Prisoners With Signs of Torture. The Washington Post: March 5, 2007:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR200703…

[22] Matthew Moore, Iraqi PM criticises ‘illegal’ British raid. The Telegraph: March 6, 2007:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/migrationtemp/1544637/Iraqi-PM-criticises-‘illegal’-British-raid.html

[23] Reuters, Iraqi PM orders probe of raid on Basra prison. Reuters: March 4, 2007:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04686706.htm

[24] Paul Wood, Basra raids raise power concerns. BBC News: March 6, 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6423691.stm

[25] Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks, As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates. The Washington Post: August 7, 2007:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR200708…

[26] Kim Sengupta, British leave last remaining Basra base: What was achieved? The Independent: September 3, 2007:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-leave-last-r…

[27] Kim Sengupta, The ‘proxy war’: UK troops are sent to Iranian border. The Independent: September 12, 2007:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-proxy-war-uk-tro…

[28] Paul von Zielbauer, British Hand Over Basra to Iraqis. The New York Times: December 16, 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/world/middleeast/16cnd-iraq.html?ex=13…

[29] Ralph Peters, Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look. Armed Forces Journal: June 2006: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

[30] The Times, Iraq: the battle for Basra. Times Online: March 28, 2008:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3635662….

[31] Patrick Cockburn, British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra. The Independent: March 30, 2008:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-and-us-force…

[32] BBC, Britain and the battle for Basra. BBC News: March 30, 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7321461.stm

[33] Patrick Cockburn, Al-Sadr calls ceasefire after six days of clashes. The Independent: March 31, 2008:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/alsadr-calls-ceasefi…

[34] Charles Levinson, Iranians help reach Iraq cease-fire. USA Today: March 31, 2008:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-30-iraqnews_N.htm

[35] AP, In push for political unity, Cheney visits Iraq. MSNBC: March 17, 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23667595/

[36] Tom Coghlan, Dick Cheney tour sparks Iran war rumours. The Telegraph: March 21, 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1582409/Dick-Cheney-tour-spark…

[37] Real News, Ex-CIA analyst on Petraeus and Cheney. The Real News Network: April 11, 2008:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&It…

[38] Dana Milbank and Justin Blum, Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force. The Washington Post: November 16, 2005:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR200511…

[39] Press Office, CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS. Judicial Watch: July 17, 2003: http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_iraqi-oilfield-pr.shtml

[40] AP, Iraq in talks with Royal Dutch Shell on joint venture deal to invest natural gas. The International Herald Tribune: June 17, 2008: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/17/business/ME-FIN-Iraq-Natural-G…

[41] Andrew E. Kramer, Deals with Iraq are set to bring oil giants back. The International Herald Tribune: June 19, 2008: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/19/africa/19iraq.php

[42] AFP, Iraq presidency rejects provincial election law. AFP: February 27, 2008:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hYO3MajPLR6JQiP1E71sgMz0ufzg

[43] Sholnn Freeman, Iraqi Council Clears Key Legislation on Provincial Elections. The Washington Post: March 20, 2008:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR200803…

[44] Leslie Gelb, The Three State Solution. The New York Times: November 25, 2003:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/6559/threestate_solution.html?breadcrumb=...

[45] Michel Chossudovsky, “Osamagate.” Global Research: October 9, 2001:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html

[46] George W. Bush, Bush’s Speech on the Global War on Terror, March 2008. CFR: March 27, 2008:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/15867/bushs_speech_on_the_global_war_on_t…

[47] Conn Hallinan, Column: Dispatches FromThe Edge: The Story Behind the Battle for Basra. The Berkeley Daily Planet: April 11, 2008: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-04-11/article/29715

[48] Leslie Gelb and Joseph Biden, Jr., Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq. The New York Times: May 1, 2006: http://www.cfr.org/publication/10569/unity_through_autonomy_in_iraq.html…

[49] Linda S. Heard, The Prophecy of Oded Yinon. Counter Punch: April 25, 2006: http://www.counterpunch.org/heard04252006.html

[50] Richard Perle, et. al., A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies: June 1996: http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

[51] Leslie Gelb, The Three State Solution. The New York Times: November 25, 2003:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/6559/threestate_solution.html?breadcrumb=...

[52] Daniel Dombey and Andrew Ward, Oil tops Cheney’s Middle East tour agenda. The Financial Times: March 16, 2008: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d132d1e2-f3a2-11dc-b6bc-0000779fd2ac.html

[53] Chris Floyd, US Attack on Iran: Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for “Sudden Nuclear Hazards” After Cheney Visit. Global Research: March 31, 2008: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8494

[54] World Tribune, U.S. charges Iran behind renewed violence in Iraq. The World Tribune: March 27, 2008: http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ss_iran_03_27.asp

[55] Claudia Parsons, US envoy to UN blames Iran for fueling Iraq violence. Reuters: April 28, 2008:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42696

[57] Mark Mazzetti, U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work. The New York Times: December 3, 2007: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/03/5588/

[58] Gareth Porter, POLITICS-US: Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE. IPS: November 8, 2007: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39978

[59] Seumas Milne, Secret US plan for military future in Iraq. The Guardian: April 8, 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/08/iraq.usa

[60] Patrick Cockburn, Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control. The Independent: June 5, 2008:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/revealed-secret-plan…

[61] Ismail Salami, US hidden agenda in Iraq security agreement. Press TV: June 7, 2008: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=59060&sectionid=3510303

[62] AP, Iraq, US seek security compromise. Associated Press: June 19, 2008: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4Sx1RDO6xF-Ggz2GsqBY6y0vq6AD91DC1TG1

Profiting from Iraq's occupation

Ellie Keen — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:28:10 +0000

The British in Basra are unpopular and mostly ineffective. The last survey of Basra residents by BBC Newsnight indicated that 86 per cent believe British troops have had a negative effect on the Iraqi province since 2003. More than half felt the troops presence had actually increased the overall level of militia violence over the past four years. Twelve per cent believed that British troops had made no difference at all. Only two per cent believed British troops had had a positive effect. And 83 per cent said they wanted British troops to leave Iraq without delay. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the British role, carried out at great cost, including of many lives.

Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown promised to reduce British troops in Iraq from 4,500 to 2,500. On 28 April, Defence Secretary Des Browne abandoned that promise in parliament.

The troops were also supposed to be no longer involved in day to day operations in the province and confined to their Basra airport base. That implied non-engagement has been undermined, as the troops gave support to the forces of the Iraqi government in their offensive against the forces of Moqtadr al Sadr.

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent’s well-respected, non-embedded, journalist in Iraq, pointed out that elections are due in about six months time and the Shias of Prime Minister Maliki’s faction are trying to gain advantage over the popular Shia faction of al Sadr. They are using force to do this and want to draw in the British in Basra.

The US are also spoiling for a fight. They are in the middle of their ‘surge’ in troop numbers. Very sensibly, al Sadr calculated he could wait them out and called a cease-fire. He then extended it. The US would like to goad him into a fight and are using the Maliki forces to do it. US troops have moved into the Basra area and have goaded UK forces into taking part too. The weak British government has caved into this pressure, but even if for a short while they back up one faction over another, they will remain largely ineffective.

Of course, the US has no respect for any of the Shias, or Sunnis either, and an understandable reading of their strategy since they replaced the secular government of Iraq with a religious-based Shia one, is to keep them at each others throats. The factions are well prepared to change alliances, at least temporarily according to circumstances. So the Sunnis too have quietened their opposition to the US.

Also perhaps it is unfair to call the British completely ineffective. In March, in Kuwait, the Basra Development Commission was launched. This is a ‘joint initiative’ of the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Barham Saleh, and British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. At the launch the governor of Basra, Mohammed al-Wa’ili said ‘Basra welcomes private sector investors’. As Basra province holds 80 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves and is home to the country’s only deep sea port and trade routes to the Gulf, the private sector is likely to be primarily US or US allies and not Iraqi. The British helped with the drafting of the new oil law, and with this commission are moving along the take over of Iraq’s assets and the long-term expropriation of massive profits from them. In this way we are doing our bit for our US allies.

Britain’s Labour government, in effect, has one last chance to get out with a modicum of reason. The United Nations mandate, which currently authorises the US and British presence in Iraq, runs out at the end of this year. That mandate does not really legitimise the occupation as the US and Britain were charged with ensuring the security of the Iraqi people and facilitating humanitarian aid and economic investment. The coalition has totally failed on both counts. The commitment to leave should be required of the Labour government at every opportunity, and not just by the end of the year. Our presence serves no national or international interest. We do not want to fight for one side in a civil war or to try to give advantage to one side in Iraqi elections. Those purposes are not worth the life or health of another British soldier.

However the US has no intention of leaving when their UN mandate runs out. They are already negotiating a bilateral contract with their puppet, dependent government in Baghdad, to ‘supply security’. The US will, in effect, turn itself into a mercenary army of occupation. They will be securing their pay out by robbing Iraq of its resources. No wonder Republican presidential candidate John McCain, in answering a question about whether US troops would be in Iraq for 50 years, replied ‘make it a hundred’.

Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, recently published his new book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The true cost of the Iraq conflict. At a meeting in Parliament he described it as a ‘war totally financed on the credit card’. It has been a factor in the current global economic crisis, he said. The high price of oil also owes its genesis to the Iraq war and its aftermath. The US has created this crisis and is calculating it will, over time, be in a powerful position by grabbing control of Iraq’s oil. This, though, is not just illegal by any recognised standard, but a formula for never-ending conflict in Iraq as its people fight a nationalist war of liberation.

Iraqis are already victims. As well as the dead and maimed, there are approximately two million widows with very little economic means, according to one respected charity. The four million refugees are a scandal the west studiously ignores. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has just published its report Five Years Later: a Hidden Crisis. In their letter to MPs the IRC state ‘The US led invasion of Iraq five years ago and its violent aftermath have produced one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time, yet the “Coalition of the Willing” has been mostly unwilling to own up to it and provide aid for the innocent bystanders’. It is of fundamental importance to get this matter discussed in parliament.

Behind the BBC's Good News from Basra

Ellie Keen — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:43:35 +0000

The Today programme’s reporting of the assault on Basra and Baghdad’s Sadr City by the Iraqi government, backed by US and British troops, tanks and warplanes, has descended to the base assertion that our side is good, their side is bad.

Evan Davis, Today’s new presenter, introduced a section on Basra on May 2 which opened with an resident of Basra describing Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army as “very ill-educated, basically criminals” and welcoming the renewed invasion by western forces. Davis then turned to Major General Barney White-Spunner, the UK’s senior officer in Iraq: “So it sounds like fairly good news from Basra?”

“That’s certainly our view,” White-Spunner replied. Davis pressed for more good news: “Are the gains sustainable, I suppose is the question isn’t it? Or do you think if you don’t get to mend the sewers very well people are going to become discontented again and we’ll start getting back to more street disorder?”

White-Spunner took his cue and talked unchallenged about the “excellent work” UK troops were doing, about “development”, “aid distribution”, “humanitarian work”, “sensitivity” to local needs and so on. The interview was almost as cosy as editorial meetings of The Field magazine or Baily’s Hunting Directory, where White-Spunner works when not occupying foreign lands.

Meanwhile, Iraqi government troops were parading the bodies of dead Mahdi fighters like trophies and beating up prisoners. On the same day as White-Spunner’s Radio 4 interview a huge crowd of Shia Muslims protested against Iraq’s US-backed prime minister al-Maliki in Baghdad’s Sadr City, urging him to end the bloody confrontation with the Mahdi Army.

The British media routinely portrays supporters of Moqtada Sadr as “militia”, “extremists”, “men in black”, “rogue gunmen” and “death squads”. Yet, up until last September, Moqtada Sadr’s group was part of the Iraqi government. The US offensive has relied heavily on the Iran-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, many members of the armed wing of which, the Badr Organisation, have been battling the Sadr-led resistance.

The US demonises the Mahdi Army because Sadr is resolutely opposed to the occupation. Moreover, many Shia view the Mahdi in part as a charitable organisation and are often grateful for the security it provides. Sadr’s organisation gives money to families of Shia dead and injured, resettles displaced families and offers funds for any victim of American weapons in Sadr City. Evoking comparisons with Hezbollah, Sadr’s movement “has established itself as the main service provider in the country,” says a recent report by Refugees International. Every month the Mahdi army distributes rations of rice, cooking oil, sugar, tea and other staples, much of it provided by the Iraqi Red Crescent, to thousands of Baghdad’s poorest families.

As the Financial Times put it last month, the clashes between the government and the Mahdi army reveal a class division at the heart of the Shia community. Sadr represents the angry, dispossessed Shia masses of Iraq who suffered under Saddam. “What we’ve seen over the past few weeks is a real class struggle open up with no political means for bridging the gap,” the International Crisis Group told the FT. “Sadr’s followers don’t care if he’s an ayatollah or not. They just want him to win for them the wealth and prosperity they feel should be theirs,” a US official told the paper.

The British media’s last line of attack is that British troops are defending women’s rights. But abuse of women was widespread in Basra before the British were driven out of the city last autumn. The US-backed government has brought right-wing Islamists to power, unleashing attacks against women.

The resistance in battling the occupation. But for the BBC’s flagship news programme our boys are just doing good, building sewers and helping reconstruction. This is far from the case – the British and US armies are building a sewer of bloodshed and sectarian hatred in Iraq.

The Iraqi Whirlwind

tim — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:32:58 +0000

A persistent drumbeat of optimism about the progress of the war in Iraq has been audible among some United States commentators in the last months of 2007 and the early months of 2008. The reduction in American military and Iraqi civilian casualties during much of this period has helped fuel this mood, and the notable decrease in US media interest in Iraq – partly owing to the blanket coverage of both an effervescent presidential-election campaign and a severe economic downturn – has further encouraged the subliminal sense of a gradual improvement.

Now, the extensive fighting between Iraqi government forces and the Shi’a militias of Muqtada al-Sadr¹ in and around the southern Iraqi city of Basra – and an ensuing upsurge of violence in Baghdad itself – have forced less comfortable Iraqi realities back into the political and media consciousness. The impact of these events in Iraq, and on the contest for the US presidency, may be to replace the roseate view that had begun to prevail with a more realistic assessment.

After the surge

The United States military “surge” did have a substantial effect in 2007, and the increase in security in parts of Iraq that it delivered meant that thousands of civilian deaths and injuries that might otherwise have occurred were avoided – a very welcome outcome in an otherwise bleak situation. The indications from the January-March 2008 period suggest, however, that this improvement is not being maintained. The clearest evidence is the increasing casualty rate among both Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.

At the end of March, three Iraqi government ministries – health, interior and defence – published figures showing that 1,082 Iraqis had been killed that month; this total was significantly higher than the February toll of 721, and almost double the January number of 540 (see BBC News, “Iraqi death toll climbs sharply²“, 1 April 2008).

American military losses have also shown a marked if uneven rise in the first three months of the year, reflecting too more frequent insurgent attacks. The number of troops killed grew from twenty-three in December 2007 to forty in January 2008; there was then a decline to twenty-nine in February and a rise again to thirty-eight in March (see the Iraq Coalition Casualties³ website).

The sharp increase in attacks on US and Iraqi forces and civilians in Baghdad⁴ in late March – at the same time as the violence in Basra peaked – is especially notable. The mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks on the “green zone” in Baghdad have been widely reported, but these are just one part of a much bigger picture (see Dieter Bednarz, “Baghdad’s Green Zone Under Attack⁵“, SpiegelOnline, 31 March 2008). In the week from 24 March, for example, there were 728 attacks across Iraq, 430 of these in Baghdad (which had been the main focus of the US surge); this compares with an average of 326 attacks a week in Baghdad in June 2007, the fifth month of the surge (see Sudarsan Raghavan, “Attacks on U.S. Forces Soared at End of March⁶“, Washington Post, 2 April 2008).

In a fix

What is the explanation for this trend of events? It is becoming clear that much of the decrease in violence towards the end of 2007 was due to the decision by the Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to order his Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi army) to observe a six-month ceasefire. Indeed, this was at least as significant as the other developments championed by proponents of the “optimistic” narrative – the US surge itself and the associated US arming of Sunni militias against al-Qaida elements in central Iraq.

Moreover, the Sunni insurgents who remain in combat mode have demonstrated a resilience and capacity for innovation that have taken US forces by surprise. A prime example of this is their use of a new generation of sophisticated and deadly roadside bombs, termed “explosively-formed projectiles” (EFPs) or “shaped charges”. These devices⁷ produce slugs of molten metal projected at extremely high velocities which are capable of penetrating most standard light armour. They have been in use in Iraq, and inflicted many casualties, in the past two years; but in the first three months of 2008 more powerful versions, often employing multiple charges, have begun to appear. This development has provoked the US army into a demand⁸ for fresh supplies of the new and heavily armoured “mine-resistant, ambush-protected” (MRAP) vehicles.

A reliable military journal reports that: “Yet more weapons are being used in each attack. Typically insurgents take multiple EFPs, position them in foam to look like the surrounding terrain and angle them to do most damage to a vehicle” (see Kris Osborn, “Powerful IEDs Renew U.S. Interest in MRAPs”, Defense News⁹, 31 March 2008).

The multiple-charge capacity means that insurgents are now able to prepare devices where a single explosive charge will deliver up to seven armour-piercing projectiles. Many US soldiers have lost limbs to EFP devices; as one American sergeant is quoted as saying, “It’s just molten copper ripping through these Humvees. It goes in one side and out the other and takes everything in between with it” (see Darrin Mortenson, “Troops’ Recurring Nightmare in Iraq¹⁰“, Time, 15 October 2007).

This is part of a pattern that has emerged throughout the five-year war: of the United States responding to insurgent attacks by reconfiguring its equipment and tactics – including a much greater reliance on heavily-armoured personnel carriers – while the insurgents learn to upgrade their own operations at least as quickly. These latest developments suggest that the insurgent forces are a long way from being curtailed; indeed they appear capable of considerable innovation at precisely the time when neo-conservatives (and others) in Washington have been speaking of likely victory in Iraq.

The southern front

The United States role in Iraq, target of a continuing challenge from militants in the Sunni areas, is also central to the upsurge in fighting around Basra in late March 2008. The immediate cause of this was the Iraqi government’s decision to mount an offensive on 25 March 2008 against the Jaish al-Mahdi militias in the key oil-industry centre of Basra, which could not have been undertaken without the knowledge and support¹¹ of the US military (even if the White House was quick to distance itself from the operation).

The result of the intense, week-long combat has been inconclusive¹², but it – and the multiple attacks on the green zone in response to the Basra campaign – are potent reminders of the Mahdi army’s capabilities, as of the complex power-struggles in the Iraqi south (see Reidar Visser, “Basra’s second battle decoded¹²“, 31 March 2008). When Muqtada al-Sadr announced his militia’s ceasefire at the end of August 2007, there was a presumption that his position had been weakened by the decay of some of its elements into what amounted to local warlordism. An extension¹³ of the ceasefire after the first six months was seen as a further sign of weakness. This, it seems, encouraged the Nouri al-Maliki government to use the opportunity to launch an assault on the militia’s activities in Basra (see Gareth Porter, “Muqtada’s fight puts US to flight¹⁴“, Asia Times, 1 April 2008).

The fact that US approval was needed for the government to go ahead means that US military planners are likely to have shared the Iraqi government’s assessment. At the very least, there was an active assumption that the Iraqi army units were capable¹⁵ of wresting some degree of control of Basra from several of the militias that had established control there, principally if not exclusively the Sadrists.

The failure to do so, compounded by reports of elements in the Basra police force switching sides to support the militias, is a major setback. It has already resulted in the British government’s announcement that it intends to maintain¹⁶ force levels near the city; and it will probably make US troop withdrawals that bring the total deployment to below the pre-surge levels of January 2007 even less likely than they already were (see Steven Lee Myers & Thom Shanker, “Bush Given Iraq War Plan With A Steady Troop Level¹⁷“, New York Times, 25 March 2008).

The war at home

What does all this mean for the United States presidential campaign? A curious aspect of the broadcast media presentation of the recent fighting in Basra and Baghdad in the US is the strong impression that what was happening was both distant and largely disconnected from the country’s own involvement in Iraq. Apart from a concern with the capital’s green zone (especially when three Americans were wounded¹⁸ there), the portrait suggested that this was all a local, Basra-centred and essentially internal Iraqi affair. True, broadsheets such as the Washington Post and the New York Times offered a wider view, but the network TV channels that are the public’s main source of news were remarkably consistent in reflecting this attitude.

The source of this approach may, again, be partly a by-product of the all-consuming coverage of the domestic election campaign and the economic crisis; though there may also be an element of reluctance to confront the realities of a dismal and inescapable conflict. The result is a mix of neglect and one-sidedness that is very different from the neocon picture of a winnable war, even if it offers no real insight into what is actually occurring in Iraq (see the illuminating interview with Iraq-based journalist Patrick Cockburn, “Who is Iraq’s ‘firebrand cleric’?[19]”, Mother Jones, 31 March 2008).

The institutional and even psychological barriers to consistent American attention on Iraq may be very great in this sixth year of the war. But the overall security situation in Iraq is so uncertain and fragile that this studious ignoring of the war is unlikely to last. There are in addition urgent calls²⁰ for Nato reinforcements in Afghanistan at a time when attacks on Nato²¹ supply-lines have escalated and thousands of Taliban militia are moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan. It is therefore probable that some combination of Iraqi and Afghanistan crises will become inescapable even for those who thought the countries could be safely forgotten until after the election. The “long war” is not going to go away.

Links:
1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/who-is-muqtada-alsad…
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7324106.stm
3. http://icasualties.org/oif/
4. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080330/wl_afp/iraqunrestbaghdadcurfew_0803…
5. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,544373,00.html
6. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR200804…
7. http://www.defense-update.com/newscast/0207/news/010207_efp.htm
8. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3438257
9. http://www.defensenews.com/
10. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1671444,00.html
11. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/931okg…
12. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/02/AR200804…
13. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/22/iraq.main/index.html
14. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD02Ak02.html
15. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/01/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Basra-Opera…
16. http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed040108b.cfm
17. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/washington/25policy.html?partner=rssny…
18. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,543708,00.html
19. http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/03/who-is-iraqs-firebrand-cler…
20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7327944.stm
21. http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/index.html

Basra Siege Endangers Trade Unionists

Ellie Keen — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:55:25 +0000

Statement from Naftana

Basra Assault Confirms Presence of British forces a Threat to Political and Trade Union Rights in Iraq

In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called ‘Security Plan’ started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons.

The attacking forces now besieging Basra stretched all the way to the city from Dhi Qar province. Two armoured divisions are deployed, in addition to thousands of policemen, backed by US and British planning and air cover. They have cut off electricity supplies, food and water on the city of 1.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed or injured in a savage, premeditated and unprovoked attack, now spreading to much of Iraq as the people protest and show solidarity with Basra’s beleaguered people.

They describe the attack as far worse than the invasion of 2003 and begun in the same barbaric manner that the criminal Saddam employed against Basra to crush the March 1991 people’s uprising. They remind us that the present puppet Iraqi government sentenced Saddam’s Defence Minister to death few months ago for similar crimes of waging war on civilians. The assault is backed by the US and British occupation forces, particularly in providing air cover. US planes are also bombarding areas in the Basra, several southern cities and Baghdad, where tens of thousands marched yesterday denouncing the “puppet regime”. It is now, along with many other cities, under a strict curfew enforced by regime and occupation forces.

Trade union leaders have asked us to inform the public in Britain that the government’s attack on Basra serves the occupation. The city is “steadfast” and the onslaught will end in “utter failure.” The city streets were free of the occupying forces before the assault and the regime’s attacks will make it even more dependent on the occupation forces, they stressed.

Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions in the struggle for democratic trade unionism in Iraq, condemns British collusion in the preparation of the assault on Basra city and British participation in air strikes.

Naftana urges all to join in calling for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, ending the US-led occupation, and the payment of reparations to Iraq.

In the absence of adequate media coverage of the nature and context of this savage onslaught, Naftana wants to set the record straight on UK involvement.

In December 2007, the Basra Development Commission (BDC) was formally announced after discussions between Gordon Browne and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. (1) Browne appointed a British businessman, Michael Wareing, Chief Executive of KPMG International as “Commissioner”, apparently heading the BDC. (2) Wareing visited Basra in February and made outrageous comments, confirming his real interests to be those of predatory business rather than the security, development and well-being of Basra and its people.

Wareing told The Observer: “If you look at many other economies in the world, particularly the oil-rich economies, many of these places are quite challenging countries in which to do business. … Frankly, if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.” (3)

Wareing’s appointment was welcomed by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a major advocate of the 2003 invasion and of privatisation. On March 13 the British Defence Minister Des Browne met with Salih in Basra Airport. Browne promised to show new action on ‘security’ in Basra province and to bring Umm Qasr port up to ‘the highest international standards’. (4) What this meant was made clear by Salih who threatened the Governor, people of Basra and port workers’ union of Umm Qasr saying ‘there must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias’. (5)

What Salih, himself a former militia leader, was concerned about were organised port workers who had earlier confronted the American SSA Marine corporation in Umm Qasr and the Danish Maersk corporation in Khor az-Zubair in the two years after these companies were imposed by the occupying forces in 2003. (6) The new plans involve privatisation measures opposed by the port workers, who are supported by other trade unions and port management. It is likely that the planned corporate takeover of the port is required in order to facilitate the activities of international oil companies.

Nevertheless, the scale of what was afoot was not apparent, but the link between military action and breaking trade unionism was. On March 17-18 the US Vice-President Dick Cheney was in Baghdad meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who presently heads the attack on Basra city. (7) Top of the agenda was the oil law (8) and how to insure its passage. The oil law means that international oil majors will control Iraqi oil for many decades.

Various reports reveal that the present carnage was coordinated and agreed with British and American leaders. Naftana believes they commanded it. Why? The tide of national public opinion has turned against long-term troop deployment in both the UK and the USA. If the war was fought for oil and total domination of Iraq, then those most closely associated to those interests must speed up their plans. The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself. Beyond that, with local elections looming next autumn, it aims to destroy morally and physically the popular base which would otherwise be set to drive, first from local power, and subsequently from national power, the US/UK allies, Nouri al-Maliki (al-Dawa party), his main allies in the Supreme Islamic Council, led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and the Kurdish leaders, Talbani and Barzani.

Naftana calls on all who support democratic trade unionism to stand by the people of Iraq, with the port workers of Umm Qasr and the oil workers of Southern Iraq, with workers in Baghdad and many other cities who are in danger of physical elimination.

For further information on Naftana and IFOU:
Sabah Jawad – 07985 336886 sabah.jawad@googlemail.com
Kamil Mahdi – k.a.mahdi@exeter.ac.uk
Sami Ramadani – 07863 138748 sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk

Notes

Naftana (‘Our Oil’ in Arabic) is an independent UK-based committee supporting democratic trade unionism in Iraq. It works in solidarity with the IFOU. It strives to publicise the union’s struggle for Iraqi social and economic rights and its stand against the privatisation of Iraqi oil demanded by the occupying powers. For more information see the IFOU’s website http://www.basraoilunion.org

(1) www.basraoilunion.org
(2) http://www.eeegr.com/events/info.php?refnum=562&startnum=A0
(3) http://www.kpmg.com/Press/KPMGLeaderappointed.htm
(4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/iraq.oil
(5) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7294144.stm
(6) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/middleeast/13basra.html?_r=1&scp…
(7) Since 2003 the first shortened its name to SSA Marine. See on UmmQasr:http://www.allbusiness.com/transportation/marine-transportation-ferries/5665051-1.html and http://www.publici.net/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=56and on Khor az-Zubair http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13196 and http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12490
(8) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120593326652748375.htmlhttp://www.breitb…

Dying for Nothing

Ellie Keen — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:58:02 +0000

One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought

The war in Iraq has been one of the most disastrous wars ever fought by Britain. It has been small but we achieved nothing. It will stand with Crimea and the Boer War as conflicts which could have been avoided and were demonstrations of incompetence from start to finish.

The British failure in the Iraq war has been even more gross because it has not ended with a costly military victory but a humiliating scuttle. The victors in Basra and southern Iraq have been the local Shia militias masquerading as government security forces.

Britain should immediately hold a full inquiry into the mistakes made before and during the war in Iraq out of pure self-interest. Gordon Brown’s suggestion that holding such an inquiry now would somehow threaten the stability of Iraq is either a piece of obvious prevarication or, if taken at face value, a sign of absurd vanity. Iraqis show not the slightest interest in British policy and assume it will simply be an echo of decisions made in Washington.

I have watched this war being fought over the last five years and I never for a moment felt that the Government in London had the slightest idea of the type of conflict in which it was engaged. It has become common for supporters and opponents of the war to argue patronisingly that what was needed was a plan about what to do after the war, as if this would have reconciled Iraqis to be occupied by foreign powers.

Those British officers I met over the years had an acute idea of why intervention in Iraq was a very bad idea but had become used to being ignored. A few would claim that Britain had rich experience of counter- insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s and Northern Ireland after 1968. “The situation in Basra was exactly the opposite,” one former British military intelligence officer exclaimed to me impatiently. “In Malaya and Northern Ireland, we had the support of the majority but in Basra we have no allies.”

How we got into this situation needs to be inquired into and also how we avoid falling into it again. The worst failings were political. In many ways Tony Blair in 2002-03, when he decided to join America in the war, resembled Neville Chamberlain in 1938. He ignored expert professional advice. He had no alternative plan if anything went wrong. He lived in a world of propaganda and fantasy. He would spring from his plane in Baghdad to be greeted by Iraqi politicians who did not dare leave the Green Zone.

There are 175 British servicemen who have died for nothing. The troops stationed outside Basra do nothing except show the US that they have one ally left.

The British Government throughout the whole war has shown an extraordinary degree of arrogance and ignorance of history. They did not seem to know that three years after Britain captured Baghdad in 1917 it was fighting a ferocious tribal revolt along the valley of the Euphrates.

It does not require much knowledge to understand that any country should be chary of being sucked into small wars. The Duke of Wellington, who had seen what had happened to Napoleon in Spain, said that “Great powers do not have small wars”. Most of the reasons why Britain should not have allowed itself to become the unquestioning ally of America in what became an imperial occupation are obvious.

America and Britain discovered Iraq was a quagmire still. If the military situation has stabilised it is only because Iraqi Sunni and Shia now hate each other more than they hate the Americans. It is a terrible legacy of five years of war.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006. His new book Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq is published by Scribner.