Message from Basra: 'get us out of here'

A British journalist in Basra is given a simple and stark message from a senior British officer in Iraq: 'We have got it wrong' It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British officer in the four and a half years since the tanks rolled over the Iraqi border. The British Army, said the man sitting in a prefab hut in Britain's last base in the country, were tired of fighting. Not only that: their very presence in Basra was now the problem. "We would go down there [Basra], dressed as Robocop, shooting at people if they shot at us, and innocent people were getting hurt," he said. "We don't speak Arabic to explain and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What benefit were we bringing to these people?" The officer–one of the most senior in Iraq–agreed to speak to the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph only on the highly unusual condition of anonymity, but he made clear that what he said reflected a major change in British tactics. "We are tired of firing at people," he said. "We would prefer to find a political accommodation." It is a spectacular U-turn. Until September, when British troops pulled out of the city in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described as a "pre-planned and organized" move, the fighting was as intense as any since the start of the war in 2003. This year, 44 British soldiers have died as a result of Britain's operations in Iraq. Yet their commanders are now saying they got it wrong. Rather than fight on, they have struck a deal–or accommodation, as they describe it–with the Shia militias that dominate the city, promising to stay out in return for assurances that they will not be attacked. Since withdrawing, the British have not set foot in the city and even have to ask for permission if they want to skirt the edges to get to the Iranian border on the other side. Britain has always said that it would hand over control of Basra province to the Iraqi authorities only when the Iraqi forces were capable of taking control. But the picture emerging from inside the city suggests that this is far from the case. Since the withdrawal, attacks on British forces in the region have plummeted, but the level of violence in Basra remains high. Iraqis living in the city say it is now patrolled by death squads. Even the British admit that local Iraqi troops are unwilling to take on the Shia militias. As for the police–as elsewhere in Iraq–they remain ineffective and are heavily infiltrated by members of the militias. "The army here in Basra is not good," admits Capt. Allah Muthfer Abdullah, whose armored battalion was brought down from Baghdad three months ago to shore up the local forces. "We don't trust them. The army here joins the militias at night and by day they come back to us.