The British In Iraq (merged thread)

[Kiwigrunt]

Thanks for the link; very good speech indeed.

[SPWilson]

I deployed with the National Police QRF Bn in Mar 2008 and lived at Basra Palace from Mar-Nov 2008. Very interesting place. Also heard numerous comments from British and Iraqi sources about the "accomodation" the UK made with the militias in 2007.

Seeing the slideshow brought back some memories.

[Red Rat]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/defence-chiefs-gag-iraq-report

The Iraq Inquiry is going to make interesting reading when it comes out. I believe General Brown is now retired and is due to give evidence again at the Iraq Inquiry which could prove enlightening.

As ever there is the issue of what the British did in Iraq and why, but also how they are going to learn from it. I had a commanding officer who maintained a 3 strikes rule:

F*** up once - fine, everyone makes mistakes, it's how we learn
F*** up twice (same mistake) - first warning; you should have learned last time.
F*** up again and you're fired!

Problem is that on an organisational level if you are not willing to admit and confront mistakes, to discuss them openly, then you are never going to learn.

[JMA]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/defence-chiefs-gag-iraq-report

The Iraq Inquiry is going to make interesting reading when it comes out. I believe General Brown is now retired and is due to give evidence again at the Iraq Inquiry which could prove enlightening.

As ever there is the issue of what the British did in Iraq and why, but also how they are going to learn from it. I had a commanding officer who maintained a 3 strikes rule:

F*** up once - fine, everyone makes mistakes, it's how we learn
F*** up twice (same mistake) - first warning; you should have learned last time.
F*** up again and you're fired!

Problem is that on an organisational level if you are not willing to admit and confront mistakes, to discuss them openly, then you are never going to learn.

Sadly warfare is an unforgiving environment. In many (if not most) cases where lives are lost there can be no second chance.

[William F. Owen]

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?

Here the MOD Stats:
Peak during Major Combat Operations (March/April 2003): 46,000 (including those stationed outside of Iraq in support of the operation)
At the end of May 2003: 18,000
At the end of May 2004: 8,600
At the end of May 2005: 8,500
At the end of May 2006: 7,200
At the end of May 2007: 5,500
At the end of May 2008: 4,100 (in southern Iraq)
At the end of May 2009: 4,100 (in southern Iraq)
At the end of Jan 2010: 150

[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

[William F. Owen]

It wasn't. General Shirreff makes that clear.

Agreed. I head blokes saying this in 2004/5. Thus my question still stands. We all know we got it wrong. Why has never been explained.

[davidbfpo]

Ret'd Brigadier Ben Barry, now @ IISS, has finally been able to publish his report; which was classified by the MoD and cited in the Chilcot Report. Less than 1% was still redacted. Just why it was not published before now eludes me, alas it is typically British.

The aim was to analyse the land tactical lessons from the Iraq campaign from 2005–2009. In the event, the report's analysis had to go back to the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, as the actions of the US-led coalition between then and 2005 set the conditions for subsequent events.
It was based on a year's work, which included analysis of all Army post-operation reports, hundreds of interviews and a two-day conference of a hundred senior officers. Its draft was reviewed by a reference group comprised of a dozen serving and retired British general officers with Iraq experience.

There is an 18 pg Executive Summary and three PDFs for the other 240 pgs on this link:http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices...lassified-953d

There is a hour long podcast too:https://www.iiss.org/en/events/event...q-inquiry-dd6c

You will hear stress that the US military learnt quicker, often helped from "bottom up" and the part of blogs too.

He noted that neither the RAF or RN & Royal Marines had conducted a similar exercise.

Finally he commended this book 'Operation Telic: The British Campaign in Iraq 2003-2009' by Tim Ripley, a journalist, published in November 2014:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-T...lic+tim+ripley

Or for US$20:https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Tel...ct_top?ie=UTF8

[JWing]

Thanks for the links. Now if I can only find the time to read all this!

[davidbfpo]

With the catalyst of the next post I have reopened this thread.

[davidbfpo]

Patrick Porter is an Australian-born academic who has taught in the UK for many years, but retains the directness we often associate with being an Australian. He summarises his book here:https://www.historytoday.com/archive...tain%E2%80%99s

I have his book awaiting attention, so one day will add my own comments here in the books read thread.

Via MWI a US author's review; it starts with:

One doesn’t read Patrick Porter’s new book, so much as contend with it. At 232 pages, Blunder: Britain’s War in Iraq is a surprisingly short text yet a remarkably layered one. Equal parts engaging and grinding, Porter navigates the path to war in London during 2002 and early 2003 with the rigor of a forensic coroner reconstructing a murder. Rather than a cadaver, though, his subject is the intellectual underpinnings that played a role in pre-war debates on both sides of the Atlantic and were essential to the case for invasion presented to the British public by the government of Tony Blair. Blunder doesn’t trade in platitudes or indulge in conspiratorial fantasies but rather lays bare the very real and—in the abstract—noble ideas that fed into the most consequential and destructive war of this century.

Link:https://mwi.usma.edu/britains-blunder-united-kingdom-marched-war-iraq/

[JWing]

Book review of the executive summary of the Chilcot Report