British preparing to exit Basra

For U.S. and Britain, opposite directions in Iraq

By Stephen Farrell

Published: July 29, 2007

BASRA, Iraq: As U.S. troop levels are rising in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction, with the troops preparing to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra.

The British intend to pull back to an airport headquarters well out of the city, which is 480 kilometers, or 300 miles, south of Baghdad. It is a symbolic move widely taken by Iraqis as the beginning of the end of the British military presence in southern Iraq.

The scaling down by America's largest coalition partner foreshadows many of the political and military challenges certain to face American commanders when their troops begin withdrawing.

Skepticism is widespread in Basra, as in Baghdad, about whether Iraqi forces are ready to take over. Both the British and Americans will have to assuage the fears of Iraqis that they are being abandoned to gunmen and religious extremists. And both are likely to face intensified attacks from propaganda-conscious enemies trying to claim credit for driving out the Westerners.

As the British prepare for the withdrawal from the city center - and the wider transition of handing over Basra Province to Iraqi security forces during the coming months - Brigadier James Bashall, commander of the 1st Mechanized Brigade, conceded that his troops would almost certainly "get a lot of indirect fire as we go backward."

It is no coincidence that he is reading up on Britain's withdrawal from Aden, its former crown colony in what is now Yemen, and lessons from other wars, with the American experience in Vietnam what Bashall calls the "obvious parallel."

Rear Admiral Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, parried any suggestion that Basra was a model for the Americans.

"I think that our focus right now is on the operations that we are conducting," he said. "Certainly that's the thing that is in front of us right now, and I wouldn't characterize us as necessarily peeking over the shoulders of somebody else to see how they are doing it."

The British commanders studiously avoid talk of dates for the same reason U.S. commanders are resisting such pressure in Congress - they fear it would embolden insurgents.

But it has escaped no one's notice that Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, could score political points by withdrawing from an unpopular war. Brown headed to Washington on Sunday for a get-acquainted meeting with President George W. Bush.

The British pullback, and British commanders' talk of moving toward "overwatch" and intervening "in a limited sense" if requested by the Iraqis, is viewed with dismay by many Iraqis in the city.

Mustapha Wali, a teacher, was blunt. "If they withdraw, we will live in a jungle, like the early days," he said.

"The parties control the government, and the aim of officials is to fill their pockets with money - millions of dollars inside their pockets and nothing to the city."

The educated and secular middle classes fear that the Iraqi security forces - particularly the police - are hopelessly infiltrated by the extremist Shiite militias and Iranian-backed Islamist parties competing, often murderously, for control of Basra's huge oil wealth.

An overwhelmingly Shiite port city that controls Iraq's gateway to the Gulf, Basra is much less affected by the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence plaguing Baghdad. But, as a report by the International Crisis Group concluded June 25, it is virtually controlled by Shiite militias.

Since the 2003 invasion, the British-led forces in Basra have adopted a far less aggressive and interventionist stance than U.S. troops have farther north. Some contend that this was the only realistic approach, with far fewer troops at their disposal and a more benign environment.

But critics accuse the British of simply allowing the Shiite militias free rein to carry out their intolerant Islamist agenda, which involved killing merchants who sell alcohol, driving out Christians and infiltrating state institutions and the security forces.

"The British are very patient. They didn't know how to deal with the militias," said an Assyrian Christian who would identify herself only as Mrs. Mansour. "Some people think it would be better if the Americans came instead of the British. They would be harder on the militias."

The report by the International Crisis Group, an organization that seeks to prevent or resolve deadly conflicts, concedes that a recent British-led crackdown was a qualified success in reducing criminality, political assassinations and sectarian killings, but nevertheless concludes that Basra "is an example of what to avoid."

It said the British had been driven into "increasingly secluded compounds," a result, the report said, that was viewed by Basra's residents and militia as an "ignominious defeat."