A War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003-9 by Fairweather Jack

Author:Fairweather, Jack [Fairweather, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-10-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

JAMIAT

MAJOR RUPERT JONES had barely stepped off the helicopter when bad news hit. Basra’s chief of police, General Ahmed Hassan, had told the Guardian that the Shia militia had infiltrated half the city’s police force. Given the favourable reports coming from General Jonathon Riley and the UK’s senior police adviser Colin Smith – and Whitehall’s own predisposition towards good news – Hassan’s comments shocked the Cabinet Office.1 Smith was ordered to draw up a list of dodgy Iraqi officers that the British government would present to Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior for dimissal – as if a typed sheet of names would solve the deeper problem.

Jones quickly reached the conclusion that the Overwatch scheme to train the Iraqi security forces to take over – in place for only a few months – was going to fail unless the endemic corruption and militia infiltration was addressed. As chief of staff to the newly arrived 12 Mechanised Brigade, Jones was in a position to do something about it. His father was Lieutenant Colonel Herbert ‘H’ Jones, the most senior officer to die during the Falklands War. Few officers had been able to match H’s drive, and his son was equally single-minded.

Jones suspected that much of the violence gripping Basra could be traced to the Jamiat police station. The serious crimes unit headquartered at the station, originally trained and equipped by the British, was linked to scores of Iraqi deaths across Basra. The role of the militia in all this was not clear, but most of the murdered had opposed Moqtada al-Sadr’s followers. Jones pushed to create a brigade surveillance team to assist special forces in monitoring all movement in and out of the station. The danger posed by the Jamiat was believed to be so grave that regular British army patrols and police advisers were now barred from the station.

Once again a debate raged between the British on the ground as to whether to adopt an aggressive strategy against suspected insurgents, or a diplomatic approach. William Kearney, who had first uncovered abuse at the Jamiat, felt he and his staff were developing a relationship with the Jamiat’s officers, and to arrest or fire them now would only fuel further confrontation. But for officers like Jones that was precisely the point. ‘When you’ve got a cancer like the Jamiat corrupting the heart of your enterprise, your whole mission is corrupted,’ said Jones.

Unfortunately, Smith’s list of not-to-be-trusted Iraqi officers grew quickly to over a hundred officers, way too many to sack or arrest. Top of the list was Captain Jaffar at the Jamiat. The military had also come up with a broader directory of names, dubbed the Forces of Darkness list, which served as an uncomfortable reminder of just how few allies the British had on the ground. Prominent names on the list included head of the British-trained tactical support unit Major Shaqir, police chief Hassan Sawadi, Governor Waeli and of course the militia leader Ahmed al-Fartosi.

Information was scarce, as few journalists dared to enter Basra for fear of kidnapping or death.

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