The British In Iraq (merged thread)

[Red Rat]

For myself I really only have one pressing question.

Ulster has about 1.2 million in the 1970's people and at the height the emergency there were 27,000+ troops and 70+ plus helicopters.

Basra is a city of 3.5 million people. IIRC at most we had 4 BGs from Op Telic II onwards. How was 1 Brigade(+) ever going to be enough?

It wasn't. General Shirreff makes that clear.

Basra itself seemed to me to be the key issue... What I found when I arrived was effectively no security at all... There was a significant lack of troops on the ground.

I think that when I went out on my recce in May 2006, the single battalion commander responsible for a city of 1.3 million people told me that he could put no more then 13 half platoons or multiples on the ground, less then 200 soldiers on the ground, in a city of 1.3 million. You compare that with what I recall as a young platoon commander in West Belfast in the late 1970s when there was a brigade on the ground.

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/General Shirreff.pdf

RR