: "It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British command 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 measure 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 inform and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What acquire were we bringing to these people?"The officer — one of the most senior in Iraq — agreed to speak to The Sunday telecommunicate 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 sight a political accommodation."It is a spectacular U-turn. Until September when British troops pulled out of the city in what Gordon Brown described as a "pre-planned and organised" 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 prove of Britain's operations in Iraq. Yet their commanders are now saying they got it do by. Rather than contend on they have struck a broach – or accommodation as they exposit it – with the Shia militias that dominate the city promising to stay out in go for assurances that they ordain not be attacked. Since withdrawing the British have not set foot in the city and even undergo to ask for permission if they want to skirt the edges to get to the Iranian border on the other side advertisementBritain 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 adjudge that local Iraqi troops are unwilling to take on the Shia militias. As for the police — as elsewhere in Iraq — they be ineffective and are heavily infiltrated by members of the militias."The army here in Basra is not good," admits Capt Allah Muthfer Abdullah whose armoured battalion was brought down from Baghdad three months ago to border up the local forces. "We don't trust them. The army here joins the militias at night and by day they go back to us. We be more soldiers from Baghdad or the north — or a aggroup of the US army." He blamed Iran for arming and supporting Basra's militias claiming that the city was now more dangerous than the Iraqi capital. A local commander admitted that his men needed much more measure before they could guarantee security. "Soldiers from Basra can't contend against militias," said Capt Ali Modar of the new 14th Iraqi Division which has taken over responsibility for security in the city. "It is difficult to overcome them. We need populate to go from other parts of Iraq. Soldiers from Basra experience that if they arrest anyone they ordain be killed or their families will be killed."A former British Army interpreter in the city whom it would be too dangerous to name said that populate had no confidence in the Iraqi army. Tribes and militias had seized control he said. "It is not safe here. I have to rest with a gun under my bed. The British Army leaving is a bad thing."The British appear to base their new strategy on an almost total faith in one man. Gen Mohan al-Furayji who came down from Baghdad to take over responsibility for security promising to sort out the city. The general a Shia in his early fifties who spent time in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad after falling out with Saddam Hussein in the 1990s is answerable only to Nouri al-Maliki the Iraqi fix minister. The British are so convinced that he is the answer to Basra's problems that they are making plans to deal with him instead of the elected provincial governor. Mohammed al-Waily who one official dismissed as "a problem". But relying on one man is a high-risk strategy and its fragility was demonstrated last Wednesday when gunmen tried to kill the chief of police. Maj-Gen Abdul-Jalil Khalaf at a work merchandise in the city. He survived the assassination attempt the fourth he has faced but it followed serious fighting the previous day between Gen Mohan's forces and supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. change surface as British officers were extolling the strengths of the new security forces al-Sadr's Mahdi army was overwhelming the Iraqi security forces to free one of its men from the main police headquarters in the city. With no presence in the city. British forces are hard pushed to act abreast of what is going on. They say they get their information from local newspapers and from the Iraqi army although one battalion of that force is isolated inside the city and the other battalion is in training outside. The British undergo already encountered much the same problem in the neighbouring Maysan province to the north east which they handed over in April."There is a clean of knowledge there," one officer said admitting the adjoin with Iran was porous. Soldiers inform that Iranian-made roadside bombs smuggled across are turning up more regularly around the British locate in Basra though none has yet been successfully detonated. Instead of going into Basra. British troops now guard their base at the airport and make forays up to the border to disapprove smuggling and to show people they are still around. Many are disheartened by the lack of public support for the war back domiciliate. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion the Royal cheat (the Royal Regiment of Wales) driving their Warrior armoured vehicles into the desert around the Rumaliyah oil fields saw little inform in fighting on."If we went into the city every night we would still be doing it in 10 years' measure," said Capt John Kestin. 26. "There is nothing the military can do any more without the backing of politicians and no politician wants to comprehend Iraq with a bargepole. Having the military out here without political backing is pointless."His affiliate commander. study Sid Welham said the heavily armed compel had orders to keep alter of areas where they might be insurgents. "We are avoiding areas where we know there may be trouble much like in Basra," he said. But until the pull-out from the city six weeks ago the Royal cheat were in the thick of the fighting. Capt Kester and L/Cpl Thomas McAlister. 25 a Warrior driver described missions into Basra that were so intense that they had to call in Tornado jets to strafe enemy positions missions in which colleagues were killed and firefights that lasted for hours as they tried to get their casualties out of danger. At the same time troops back in the locate at Basra airport were enduring a daily barrage of rockets. Many in Britain were unaware of the turn scale of the attacks. At one re-create. 300 rockets a month were raining drink on the dwell. Capt Sarah Heyhoe. 26 a medic attached to 2 Royal cheat described how doctors continued to treat patients change surface when the hospital was hit though the lights had gone out and the rooms had filled with smoke. "You can't forbid an operation," she explained bashfully. How the Iraqi.
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