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April 29, 2003, Scotsman THE BLACK WATCH AT WAR PART THREE THE FINAL PUSH WHEN WAR SEEMED WORTHWHILE Gethin Chamberlain IF THE battle for Baghdad was an all-American, all-guns-blazing production, then the battle for Iraq's second city, Basra, was a curiously British affair. Weeks of careful manoeuvring and probing, testing out the defences, were followed by one piece of military magic which knocked the defending militia men off balance and brought the Iraqi regime in the south tumbling down. But while that Sunday when the Black Watch punched their way into Basra was the culmination of the British military campaign, the seeds of victory had already been sown in a much more understated, but just as significant manner, in the nearby town of Az Zubayr. It should come as no surprise to learn that the same man was involved in both events. From the moment Lieutenant Colonel Mike Riddell-Webster took off his helmet and flak jacket and strode out into the heart of Az Zubayr, the red hackle of the Black Watch standing up proudly on his Tam O'Shanter, the Iraqi militia were as good as beaten. In that moment, the British had demonstrated that they were not afraid of the gunmen any more, and that they did not want the ordinary people to be afraid of them either. Instead of fear and intimidation, they had decided to offer the hand of friendship. Attempts were made to restore the water supply; medicines which had been locked up by the Baath party and denied to the town's children were distributed by British military doctors; food and water were handed out. With people still moving fairly freely between Az Zubayr and Basra, word of the British handling of the town did not take long to get back to those inside the besieged city. When British tanks finally disposed of the crust of opposition on the outskirts of Basra and pushed into the city centre, they were greeted by waving crowds who appeared genuinely pleased to see them. Not that we knew any of these things would happen the morning the invitation arrived from the CO to join him on his stroll along the same streets where the Black Watch had been attacked so often in the preceding days, where men with rocket-propelled grenades had pursued us wherever we tried to stop and dropped mortars down on us when we tried to hand out the first-aid supplies. What we were expecting was another day of raids and skirmishes. The day before, the main street had still been regarded as too dangerous for vehicles such as Land Rovers. Only tanks and other armoured vehicles had been allowed to make the trip from one side of town to the other. Now this softly spoken man in his steel-rimmed glasses was suggesting we dispense not only with the reassuring solidity of the armoured vehicles which could absorb the impact of a rocket-propelled grenade, he was also asking us to take off our helmets and the body armour which contained the ceramic plates designed to stop an AK47 bullet. It was 1 April, and at first it seemed like an April Fool's Day prank. But when we arrived, he was deadly serious. Helmets and flak jackets would give the wrong impression, he said. If we were to persuade people that we meant them no harm, we had to look as if we meant it. So we took off our protection and fell in behind him as he walked out through the gates and off towards the town centre. We still had an armed escort, we knew, or thought we knew, that he would have snipers following our every move, and there were still tanks and Warriors dotted about the town, but as the crowd pressed in around us we felt very vulnerable. We need not have been so concerned. The tactic worked. People clustered round curiously, fascinated to meet at last this foreign army which had turned up in their town and driven out the Baath party officials and the militia men. They were still anxious to have their services restored, still worried about the tanks and the intentions of the British soldiers, still complaining about the effects of the fighting, but the calm reassurance of the British officers and their apparent willingness to help were defusing the situation. Riddell-Webster talked to them, listened, shook hands, conceded that they had to restore the water supply if they were to win over the town, sought out water engineers and brought in his own engineers to work with them to begin the task of getting the town back on its feet. From that moment onwards, Az Zubayr gave us no more trouble. So we turned our attention to Basra. There had been talk of some sort of uprising in the western slums, but it had come to nothing. When a thousand people had tried to flee the city, the Iraqi militia men had fired at them with mortars and machine-guns, and the British had to rush in to rescue them and cover their escape. The raids so far had concentrated on taking out television masts and knocking over significant statues of Saddam in the hope that the ordinary people, who had no love for the Baath party, would be convinced that they could rely on those outside the city to come to their aid if they took matters into their own hands, but still they seemed reluctant to commit themselves, remembering perhaps what happened to them the last time they rose up and no-one went to their aid. So the Black Watch took a couple of days out of the line to regroup and left the other regiments camped on the bridges into the city to mount their own raids. The men were frustrated, the officers were frustrated. Riddell-Webster confided that he wanted to take the city then and there, but those above him would not give the orders. And then came Sunday morning, and we were back in the line, given the task of mounting what was supposed to be yet another raid into the city to test the water. But this time there was an air of purpose that hinted at more to come. Riddell-Webster had told his officers the night before that instead of getting in and out quickly, as they had done several times before, this time he was inclined to hang around looking for trouble. As we sat on the roofs of our vehicles at the edge of the partially drained marshes on the outskirts of the city, watching the first tanks racing over the bridge as the sun came up and listening to the radio transmissions from the fighting units, it became evident that the CO had brought up the entire battle group to wait outside the city in case an opportunity presented itself. And then another very British, very Scottish, moment. As the sound of the explosions rolled across the water of the Shatt al Basrah canal, a lieutenant sitting waiting for his orders to advance brought out his bagpipes and perched on the turret of his Warrior and started to play. Maybe it was cliched, as some later suggested, maybe it did sound as if it came straight out of the script of some B-movie in which chaps in clipped accents gave Johnny Foreigner what for before popping home for a game of cricket and a nice cup of tea, but it happened all the same. The clatter of the US marines' Cobra gunships buzzing overhead as they positioned themselves to join the attack and the sounds of gunfire drifting across the marshes mingled with the strains of Scotland the Brave coming from Lt William Colquhoun's bagpipes. And not for the first time you found yourself grateful that these people were on your side - and felt sorry for those who were about to come up against them. The fighting went on for much of the morning, tanks and Warriors reporting that they were coming under fierce attack from RPGs. But the Iraqi defenders were being forced to come out into the open and they were paying a heavy price. Time and again tank commanders would report that they could see men in their sights armed with RPGs, and would request permission to fire, and the radios played out the last few seconds of someone else's life, and then there would be the puff of smoke from a little way ahead and the sound of the explosion, several seconds later, and then those disembodied voices again, reporting that the job was done. By then they were so far into the city that all their objectives were taken and Riddell-Webster was telling them to press on. Why not have a look a bit further into the city, why not go for the docks and the Baath party HQ and the other targets that they knew to be there but which had not seemed possible earlier on? And back at brigade headquarters, Brigadier Graham Binns had clearly decided that there was nothing to be gained by hanging back any longer. The other regiments, which had raids of their own planned for later in the day, were pushed forwards. By mid-afternoon, virtually all of the city was in British hands. Driving into the city that afternoon seemed strange, finally to see up close this place that had held out for so long. Everywhere there were signs of carefully planned defences, bunkers along the main roads, tanks dug into defensive positions. Everyone who drove along that road marvelled at how easy it had eventually been, and how much harder it could have been if the Iraqi army had stood and fought. But the truth was that the ordinary Iraqi soldiers had never had the stomach to face the attacking forces. Those we talked to later said they had had enough of war - the war with Iran, the first war in the Gulf 1991. They had no wish to die for Saddam Hussein, so they did not stay to fight. And the militia, while they had the will and the incentive to fight on, did not have the training to use the weapons that the army had left behind. Had they been able to fire some of the missiles the British troops found later, they could have inflicted heavy casualties. There was certainly enough military hardware around to have made a fight of it, missiles in university buildings, missiles in oil processing plants, missiles in well-protected bunkers. But the British concluded that they simply had no idea how to operate the more complicated weapons, and had stuck to what they knew, the RPGs, machine-guns and mortars. Maybe that's what happened with the chemical weapons, if they ever did exist. As for the ordinary citizens of Basra, they seemed happy enough to see the British troops. Talk of cheering crowds and people handing flowers to soldiers may sound like propaganda, but those were the scenes that really did greet the British troops as they swept through the city. Children did come running out of their homes, young men did press up to the tanks to shake the hands of the soldiers. Yes, there were still complaints about the lack of water and, yes, people did make it clear that the British were welcome to stay just as long as it took to set up an Iraqi government of the people's own choosing, but they were happy too that the Baath party had gone, and anxious that they should not be given the chance to emerge again once the British left. When the tanks and Warriors went out to patrol the streets, people came up to point out the places where the militia were still hiding or where they had abandoned their weapons' caches. They didn't like the militia men, and they didn't like their children playing with the explosives which they had left behind. Then the fighting was dying away and there was the looting to worry about. How could they loot the hospitals, people asked at home? But the hospitals we came across weren't their hospitals. They were just places where people with money or influence, or both, could be treated. If you were an ordinary Iraqi, they were just another place you couldn't go. When Kevin Beaton, the senior medical officer, found out about the hospitals, he went to the CO and told him it was time the doctors discovered the importance of treating everyone according to their need, not their status. And the banks? Just somewhere for the rich to put that wealth which had been denied to those who had got on with their lives and received a pittance for their troubles. And the schools? All fortified, like the hospitals, the school books thrown out to make way for the rockets and guns, now just somewhere where the Baathists could indoctrinate a new generation and turn out more young men to die for a cause they believed in only because they knew no other truth, or so said the schoolteacher who wouldn't tell me his name because he was afraid that once the British left the Baath party would return and would remember that he and his friends had helped the foreign troops. And for telling the lies he was forced to tell, he said, he was paid $ 15 a month and given the chance to live in a two-room flat with his wife and three children. So the looting was not right, and maybe more should have been done to stop it more quickly. Some people were afraid of the lawlessness which came with the collapse of the old regime, but talking to the people who thronged around the troops as they drove through the city, it was difficult not to believe that they were pleased the British had come to their city. It seemed it was too easy to conclude, as so many had done before the fighting started, that the war must be wrong, easy to say innocent people would die, easy to point to the politicians and question their motives, point to personal grudges and a lust for the wealth that Iraq's oil would bring. But it was not so easy to look at the faces of the children who ran on to the streets to greet the tanks and to scrabble in the dirt and filth at the side of every street for the sweets the soldiers threw to them, and believe what happened in Iraq these past few weeks was necessarily wrong. Why should they have been denied the chance of the better life that those who opposed the war for good and just and genuinely held beliefs already enjoyed? And so a small boy lost his arms and had his picture in every paper and on every television screen and was held up as an example of why war is bad. But what about the thousands of other children who didn't get caught in the bombing and now have a chance to grow up and learn and receive health care under a regime that does not teach them that the only worthwhile person is a Baath party member and that a man and his family who cared nothing about them should plunder their country and be venerated in return? Didn't they deserve a chance too? And what of Barry Stephen? And all the other young men who died on both sides? Did they worry about the politics that day the British Army crossed the border and went to war? Amid the filth and the flies, worn down by the heat and the constant fear, the ever-present knowledge that the next moment could be their last, did they stop to worry about the rights and wrongs? Maybe they didn't all believe they were fighting for a just cause but they fought all the same, fought alongside their friends and worried about the little things that conspired to make their war that bit more unpleasant and tried to forget about the bullets and the bombs they could do nothing about. And when they died, at least they died among friends who mourned their passing, just as they would have mourned the passing of their friends had their roles been reversed. They were soldiers, after all. For all those who suffered unfairly and for whom death came unexpectedly and untimely, it seemed there were so many more who were given a chance of something better. Maybe it was, as some said, a war for the wrong reason. But maybe the result was right all the same.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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