On Sept. 21 The Western Morning News, England’s best regional morning newspaper, carried a long editorial under the heading “Time to bring home our boys”. The next day the same paper had a column on Iraq by a former Conservative MP under the heading “We will leave in ignominy.”
Recent events in Basra have combined with the annual party conference season in Britain, to get newspapers up and down the land asking what is the government’s exit strategy for Britain’s 7,000 over-stretched but highly professional and well equipped soldiers in Iraq. The short answer is there is not one, never has been, and that has always been part of the British problem.
Foolish comparisons have been made with Britain’s ignominious withdrawal from Aden in 1967, which brought to an end 129 years of British rule. What was experienced by the British in 1967 was the unsettling problem of disloyalty, and that does chime with, for example, the behavior of some police officers in Basra in 2005.
In Aden individuals who had worked for the British with every satisfaction for decades, and perhaps their fathers and grandfathers before them, began to realize the Union Jack was going to come down from above Government House, and they felt they had to give their loyalty to friends and family, tribes and/or political leaders.
What has been striking about the discussions on radio and television is the lack of appreciation that we are “riding pillion on the American motor bike”, to borrow the phrase of a London think-tank report, and it is almost inconceivable that this Labour government would order a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq. American politicians will decide when American forces are to be brought back home and the British will fit in with that decision.
I find it embarrassing that the pillion rider seems to have so little influence on the direction being taken in front. Westminster was shocked that the US showed so little concern or understanding over the British subjects incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. It is not easy to know what have been the fruits from the Bush-Blair relationship, which Nelson Mandela likened to Blair appointing himself the president’s secretary of state. I have claimed that the White House has agreed to pay more attention to Arab-Israel as a result of that personal link but at the moment the road map seems to be back in the pocket.
It is also curious to note that while Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, worked well with Colin Powell and is now working well with Condoleezza Rice, Dr. John Reid, who was appointed defense secretary after the general election, and Geoff Hoon, his predecessor, have given the impression that they wanted nothing to do with Donald Rumsfeld, the American defense secretary. It is the Pentagon which, wrongly, calls the shots in Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld is a figure of contempt in London, and in terms of the Parliamentary Labour Party close ties with him would be inviting serious criticisms.
Although for obvious reasons politicians and military commanders in Britain try to avoid criticizing America’s tactics in Iraq, there is deep concern that the Americans have not attempted to modify them after two-and-a-half years. The concept of winning “hearts and minds” is simply not appreciated in the US Army it seems.
In the last few days the Americans have carried out a massive operation in the northern Iraq town of Tal Afar. According to Time the offensive “was this year’s Fallujah — a mass assault involving 7,000 US and Iraqi soldiers and hundreds of Bradleys, battle tanks, artillery pieces, all combined with AC-130 Specter gun ships, F-16 fighter jets and attack helicopters”. It is claimed many — 200? — insurgents were killed. But many civilians were killed also and a large number of homes were destroyed. Such a military response creates even stronger resistance against them in the future.
John Reid has given the government’s reply to recent calls from some Liberal Democrats and others to “bring home our boys”. He has said:
“This decision will be taken by the British government, at the request of the Iraqi democratically elected representatives. We have said all along that our troops will stay there as long as they are needed and requested by the Iraqis, that when they withdraw it will not be an event, it will be a process. And I have said since around June that I envisage that that process, which will start unequally in different parts of the country, could start within a year.”
This firm reply, and Tony Blair has responded in similar terms, ignores completely the mounting exasperation in Britain over the British involvement in Iraq. In reality, Iraq is sinking fast. It has fallen into the sort of anarchy, horror and despair that Lebanon experienced some years ago.
