|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
News Search
|
|
March 29, 2003, The Scotsman
IT WAS MEANT TO BE BASRA BY BREAKFAST AND BAGHDAD IN TIME FOR TEA Gethin Chamberlain STRANGE to think that it is only a week since we crossed the Iraqi border, that mixture of anticipation and excitement and trepidation as we drove through the gaps in the sand bank, passed the wire and over the ditches and on into Iraq. We didn't know then about the militiamen with their rocket-propelled grenades, had no reason to fear the guerrilla raids, the sudden explosion of mortar rounds, the rattle of gunfire from unseen enemies by the roadside. We didn't know then that those two soldiers would disappear without a trace, or that all the others would be gone. Back then, the war was supposed to last three days at most. Basra by breakfast, Baghdad in time for tea. The Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and Saddam would be a footnote in history. Our biggest problem would be coping with the thousands of Iraqi prisoners surrendering because they had no stomach for the fight. But I think we knew in our heart of hearts that it would never be that easy. Yes, we fretted as we sat waiting in the deserts of Kuwait, fretted the Americans would have finished the job before we even set eyes on an Iraqi, wondered whether we would fire a shot in anger. Back then, we worried about the sand that crept into our tents and our rucksacks and our sleeping bags, coated our clothing and matted our hair. We cursed the sandstorms and the heat and the flies, the stinking latrines and the inconvenience of washing in a bowl of freezing water outside our tents. Later, we grumbled about the Scud alerts, the shouts and alarms that sent us diving into slit trenches, dirt in our mouths and noses to wait for what seems hours for the distant thump of an explosion that told us it was safe to scramble out again. We bitched over the need to carry our gas masks with us everywhere we went and the shouts of "gas, gas, gas" and the blaring of vehicle horns that has us pulling on our respirators and running for cover in our baking hot vehicles, sweat pouring off us, breathing heavily through the filters designed to save our lives but which seemed designed solely to make those lives a misery. And when the bombing started and the night sky was lit with the fires burning over the horizon and the sound of the bombers filled the air, we felt sympathy for those crouched in their trenches on the Iraqi side of the border, waiting for oblivion. But that day we crossed the border, something changed in all of us. Driving up the road north, the days of waiting became a distant memory amid the ever-present signs of battle. Abandoned tanks and armoured personnel carriers littered the countryside, burnt-out trucks stood by the roadside, hit by tanks or artillery or air strikes as the Americans, heading for Baghdad, passed that way. Groups of prisoners of war sat miserably beside the road, ringed by hoops of barbed wire and guarded by British soldiers with bayonets fixed to their rifles. From up ahead came the first reports of Black Watch units engaging the Iraqis near the town of Az Zubayr, a place which would become all too familiar in the days to come. But we didn't know that then. At night we camped up where we could, barren patches of land littered with rubbish and patrolled by packs of noisy dogs, sleep broken by the sound of explosions all around, the flash of bombs and artillery shells going off, the sky glowing orange from the oil-field fire trenches lit by the Iraqis and the burning fractured pipelines. If there were no explosions, then there were more alerts, scrambling out of sleeping bags into ditches or under vehicles, searching in the dark for helmets and body armour and gas masks. The days ran together, sand storms that blotted out everything around giving way to thunder, lightning and driving rain, turning the dust to mud. We camped in the mud beside the road, protected by machine-gunners perched on sand bags at the end of that stretch of tarmac, tanks and armoured vehicles offering cover to those with little protection, the Land Rovers and the ammunition and fuel trucks. Camped among tonnes of high explosives, their protection offered little comfort. Clustered round our radios, we listened as the war went wrong, listened as those early gains lost their certainty, the sweeping advances faltering. Towns that had fallen were no longer secure, bridges taken no longer under control. And Basra, which some would have had us believe was all but taken when the Americans drove past at the start of the week, standing firm, packed with Iraqi troops and weaponry. The Iraqi soldiers had not stayed to fight, but thrown away their uniforms and vanished. Instead of a straight fight between two mismatched armies, now it was a guerrilla war against an enemy who could appear from anywhere and disappear just as quickly. The first losses among our own were hard to take, the reports of engineers missing in an RPG attack. Then two more deaths, both to RPGs, the first Black Watch soldier lost. The news was broken to the men as they awoke, but there was news of other deaths too. This time, not from the Iraqi guns and rockets, but from a tank round fired by our own battle group. We took it in, talked about it, accepted it, accepted that such things happen in the confusion of war. But there were successes, too - the bridges of Basra taken, shells and mortars and bombs raining down on those inside the city. We revelled in the reports of every victory, every tank knocked out, every artillery piece destroyed, forgetful now of those who had been firing back at us. They were our enemy. It was their rockets that had killed our men, their attacks that caused the confusion in which our troops fired on their own. They wanted us dead, and we cared nothing for them. They would think the same of us, we told ourselves. When we heard that Douggie Hay had ordered his Warrior to ram the Baath Party headquarters in Az Zubayr, we smiled and thought no more of the seven men who died trying to fight off the attack. When we heard the helicopters flying overhead in the dark towards Basra, we gave thanks for the chance of a few moments' respite from the fear of fresh attacks to send us running for cover again. And so it goes on, lying flat under the body of a Land Rover waiting for shells to fall from artillery spotted a few miles away. Learning to live with fear that goes with sitting in the dark waiting to drive down roads where you know men are waiting to try to kill you. Hearing that the front of your convoy is under RPG attack, flinching at the sound of the explosion, rejoicing at the news that it has missed. Running for cover as mortar bombs explode 200 yards from where we are handing out humanitarian aid. Listening on the radios to our tanks and our armoured vehicles taking out the Iraqi positions at the front and cheering on their every success. And now as we wait for the moment when the commanders decide they can no longer put off the advance into Basra, we are the enemy at the gates, trying to avoid our own Stalingrad. We must hope that the promise of humanitarian aid, of food and water, will persuade those inside the city to rise up and overthrow the regime we are told they hate so much. But if it comes to street fighting, this week will soon seem as far away as last week does now.
|
|
||||
|
................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
|||||||
