Britain and the War on Terror by Chin Warren

Author:Chin, Warren.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2013-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

4. Security

Another important obstacle was that the British did not have sufficient force to control MND SE. Overall, troop levels fell drastically during the summer of 2003 from 26,000 to 9,000 to cover four provinces and in 2005 there were only 7,200 British troops in the region, plus small contingents from other countries. This meant that forces were stretched thinly on the ground. In 2003 the British deployed a force of 1,000 soldiers to provide security in Maysan, an area the size of Northern Ireland, which included the city of Amara with a population of over 400,000. This also entailed deploying a force of just 70 soldiers to secure a 200-mile border with Iran.81 In Northern Ireland the ratio of soldiers to civilians was approximately 1:50; in Iraq that ratio was 1:370.82

Improving the security situation was also hindered by the failure of the British to secure control of all the arms dumps in the area. By February 2004, UK forces had disposed of 680,000 tons of munitions. However, this was only a fraction of the total tonnage of ordnance left behind in the south and the British admitted that of the 62 captured ammunition sites recorded they had only cleared 13.83 A report published by Human Rights Watch noted that many of these sites were located in urban areas and were easy to access. Not only did this represent a significant safety threat to the civilian population, it also provided insurgents and criminals with a readily available supply of ammunition.84

A complicating factor in the security picture was the extensive criminality within the British occupied zone. According to Dodge, organised crime accounted for 80 per cent of the violence in Iraq.85 Such crime focused on oil smuggling in Basra and flourished in the 1990s as sanctions took effect and the regime’s control of society declined. Unfortunately, these groups thrived in the chaos of the occupation, the absence of law and order, the ready availability of small arms and the lack of intelligence about Iraqi society.86 The initial British response to these security problems was not that dissimilar to the Americans in that they tried to increase their presence on the streets through frequent patrolling. In Basra the British undertook between 1,000 and 2,000 patrols per week. Inevitably this brought the army into conflict with thieves, carjackers, kidnappers, smugglers and even pirates, but there was also an element of Islamist and nationalist violence, suggesting political opposition to the occupation.87 Unfortunately the establishment of this military presence caused conflict between the people and the army. It appears that the British were as culturally unaware as their American counterparts when attempting to establish security.88 In June 2003 six military policemen were killed by a mob over the British Army’s efforts to seize all firearms possessed by the civilian population. Apparently, the city of Majar al Kabir had proved ungovernable even during Saddam’s reign and had liberated itself from Ba’ath rule so its citizens did not perceive the British as liberators when they arrived. British

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