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
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