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Looking For Trouble |
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April 8 |
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(Published April 9) AS THE crowd swarmed around the tanks, waving and cheering, a man pushed forward with a bunch of flowers in his hand, picked from one of the gardens at the side of the wide-open street in the heart of Basra. He stepped up to the tank and handed one pink bloom to each of the soldiers standing up in the turret, and one to the driver whose head was poking through the open hatch at the front. And, in that moment, it was clear, finally, that to all intents and purposes, the war in the south of Iraq really was over. In little more than two days, Basra had gone from being a formidable military target to just another of those many cities around the world where tanks and soldiers mingle with people trying to get on with their lives. There are still skirmishes to be fought, the last pockets of Fedayeen militia to be rooted out, weapons to be blown up, but any thoughts of an organised Iraqi fightback have disappeared as surely as the army that melted away. On the streets of Basra yesterday, British tanks and Warriors vied for space with buses and taxis, donkey carts and private cars. People tooted their horns as the soldiers drove past, and from the narrow side alleys cutting between densely packed houses in the poorer parts of the city, children poured out to watch this new and fascinating army driving by. Throughout the city, along the roads lined with palm trees and banked high with piles of fly-blown rubbish, people came out to wave and give the thumbs -up sign to the British troops. There were some indications of the brief fighting which had dominated the first day; buildings smashed and reduced to rubble, concrete floors hanging precariously, their supports blown away. But of the Fedayeen, the militia that had tried to stem the British advance with its rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and AK47s, there was no sign. At every stop the tanks made, people pushed forward to tell the troops of more piles of weapons left abandoned, more palaces where the Fedayeen had stayed. "Children are playing with the bombs and the guns the Fedayeen have left behind," one man told a tank commander. Miming an explosion, throwing his arms wide open, he wanted the soldiers to blow up the weapons haul. "There are lots of bombs and guns in that building. The Fedayeen left them there," he said. Others in the crowd pointed out the two-storey house where the Fedayeen had been. The soldiers noted the location and passed its grid reference back over their radios. Later, it would be visited by D Company and found to contain a large haul of weapons, RPGs and mortars, more machinegun rounds, but no Fedayeen. Mounds of burning paperwork suggested they had not long left. From the shattered remains of the security-service building near the centre of town, tanks and armoured patrols foraged further and further into areas of the city still unvisited, clanking over the kerbstones and into the chaotic mass of vehicles thronging the streets. Their patrols took them through the slums, past waterways turned deep red by pollutants, past the shops opening their doors again for business now the shooting had stopped, through the areas renamed on the military maps after the names of Scottish rivers - Dee, Tweed, Earn and Spey. Another shanty town area had been codenamed Bronx. In the Kut-as-Sayyed area, they stopped again to talk to the people clustering round the tanks, the streets dusty, the city hot and humid, slightly overcast but already baking, flies everywhere and the smell of sulphur catching in the throat. "We will be happy when there are no more problems," one man said. The young boys, braver than the others, pressed forward against the tanks, asking the soldiers' names. A man who spoke good English, but who laughed when they asked his name, told them the British had to help the people now the old regime was gone. "The future is much better than we are now but we need you to protect our establishments and homes from the people who are stealing from us. We need protection," he said. "The Fedayeen have run away, but they are still around. We are not safe yet." People were afraid of the explosions which rocked the night, and the sudden bursts of gunfire that rattled around the city, he said. The water had run also run dry. In the Al Jummariya district, on the outer edge of one of the slums - the upper level of the lower class, as one soldier put it - they pressed around the tanks again, young boys in football shirts, one clutching a ball. "Football," a soldier said, and the small boys all cheered. From the narrow lanes, criss-crossed with telegraph lines and festooned with television aerials, more children ran out, mothers urging them on. Only once did anyone show signs of disapproval, a father appearing from out of a building and striding through the crowd, snatching his son by the arm and clipping him round the head as he dragged him away. As they moved along the dirty streets, the young boys raced alongside, desperate to keep up. The man with the flowers approached from the side of the road, and the tanks slowed to accept his gift. When they stopped again, it was in an area which seemed to house some of the city's middle class. Families were standing by the gates of their more substantial homes, their gardens green against the concrete uniformity of their homes. In the heart of another crowd, a man was pushing his way to the front. His English was good, and he was clearly an educated man. His name was Jamal Hussein, and he was no friend of the old regime, he said. He wanted to help the British, he said. "We are not resisting the British, the British Army is welcome," he told the soldiers. "But we are worried about what the future is because a new Iraqi government has not come yet. People want democracy, nobody wants the Baath Party. "If there are Fedayeen still here, they have thrown away their guns and surrendered because their leaders have run away and they are not fighting for a cause." There were maybe 3,000 Baath Party members in the city, he said, but they were staying in their houses; they were afraid. But there was concern that they might not yet be finished. "People will give information about the Baath Party because they don't want them to reorganise. If they can reorganise, the British Army will be in trouble," he said. He was worried, too, about the looting and lawlessness that had come to the city since the Iraqi regime in Basra crumbled. People were taking the law into their own hands, he said. "People are throwing stones at thieves; today we caught three thieves at the bank," he said. "We need the British Army to keep police around the banks and important buildings. They are coming to liberate us, not to let in thieves. That is one of the drawbacks of war. "Most people are uneducated. They think it is Saddam Hussein's property but it is not, it is people's property. They have destroyed the telephone exchange and there are other urgent things we need. If the British Army wants to be welcome, they have to help with these things." But the British Army knows it must get the city back on its feet, and quickly. They have learnt the lessons of Az Zubayr, the neighbouring town which gave them so much trouble until they managed to get in the humanitarian aid and switch back on the water. Within days, they found they were able to walk safely down streets where earlier they had faced attack. The man who led the British push into Basra, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Riddell-Webster, the commanding officer of the Black Watch, was pondering how quickly the situation had changed. A couple of days earlier, he had been co-ordinating what should have been just another raid into the city but, as the Scottish regiment pushed on further and the resistance began to crumble, he seized his chance. Calling up the rest of his battlegroup, which he had brought forward in case the opportunity arose to push on further, he gave the order to advance. Then, having gone all the way in, "we decided to push harder. We turned south and headed for the centre of town. The further south we went the more pleased to see us people seemed". But he also acknowledged things could have turned out differently. Tons of ammunition and weapons have already been recovered, and yesterday British troops were still finding many more hauls tucked away in schools and other buildings taken over by the militia. "Had the regular army stood and fought and used those weapons, it would have been much more difficult," he said. The army knows it will be in Basra for some time to come but, for now, as the Americans push further into Baghdad, they hope their war may soon be over.
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(Original copy) AS the crowd swarmed around the tanks, waving and cheering, a man pushed forward with a bunch of flowers in his hand, picked from one of the gardens at the side of the wide open street in the heart of Basra. He stepped up to the tank and handed one pink bloom to each of the soldiers standing up in the turret and one to the driver whose head was poking through the open hatch at the front. And in that moment it was clear, finally, that to all intents and purposes, the war in the south of Iraq really was over. In little more than two days, Basra had gone from being a formidable military target to just another of those many cities around the world where tanks and soldiers mingle with people trying to get on with their lives. There are still skirmishes to be fought, the last pockets of Fedayeen militia to be rooted out, weapons to be blown up, but any thoughts of an organised Iraqi fightback have disappeared as surely as the army which melted away in the night. On the streets of Basra yesterday, British tanks and Warriors vied for space with buses and taxis, donkey carts and private cars. People tooted their horns in greeting as the soldiers drove past, and from the narrow side alleys cutting between the densely packed houses in the poorer parts of the city, children poured out to watch this new and fascinating army driving by. Throughout the city, along the roads lined with palm trees and banked high with piles of fly-blown rubbish, people came out to wave and give the thumbs up sign to the British troops. There were some signs of the brief fighting which had dominated the first day, buildings smashed and reduced to rubble, concrete floors hanging precariously, their supports blown away. But of the Fedayeen, the militia that had tried to stem the British advance with its rocket propelled grenades and mortars and AK47s, there was no sign. Everywhere the tanks stopped, people pushed forward to tell the troops of more piles of weapons left abandoned, more palces where the Fedayeen had stayed. "Children are playing with the bombs and the guns the Fedayeen have left behind," one man told a tank comander. Miming an explosion, throwing his arms wide open, he wanted the soldiers to blow up the weapons haul. "There are lots of bombs and guns in that building. The Fedayeen left them there," he said. Others in the crowd pointed out the two-storey ochre coloured house where the Fedayeen had been, or still might be, some said. A green painted artillery piecem, abandoned and on its side, lay in the street nearby. Children had been hurt by the bombs, the crowd said, their broken English augmented by their enthusiastic hand gestures. The soldiers noted the location, passed it's grid reference back over their radios. Later, it would be visited by D company and found to contain a large haul of weapons, RPGs and mortars, more machine gun rounds, but no Fedayeen. Heaps of burning paper work suggested they had not long left. Maybe they had been watching as the crowd gave away their position to the tanks. From the shattered remains of the security service building near the centre of town, tanks and armoured patrols foraged further and further into areas of the city still unvisited, clanking over the kerbstones and into the chaotic mass of vehicles thronging the streets. Their patrols took them through the slums, past waterways turned deep red by the pollutants which had poured in, or been poured in, past the shops opening their doors again for business now the shooting had stopped, through the areas renamed on the military maps after the names of Scottish rivers - Dee, Tweed, Earn and Spey. Another shanty town area had been codename Bronx. Some pictures of Saddam remained, but others had already been knocked over or torn down. In the Kut as Sayyed area they stopped again to talk to the people clustering rond the tanks, the streets dusty, the city hot and humid, slightly overcast but already baking, flies everywhere and that smell of sulphur they noticed on the first day in the city catching in the throat. "We will be happy when there are no more problems," one man said. The young boys, braver than the others, pressed forward against the tanks, asking the soldiers' names. A man who spoke good English but who laughed when they asked his name told them the British had to halp the people now the old regime was gone. "The future is much better than we are now but we need you to protect our establishments and homes from the people who are stealing from us. We need protection," he said. "The Fedayeen have run away, they are not here now, but they are still around. We are not safe yet." People were afraid of the explosions which rocked the night, and the sudden bursts of gunfire which rattled around the city. The water had run dry and that was not good, he said. And he too was worried about the children who were playing with the weapons that the Fedayeen had left behind when they ran away. Wherever the tanks went, people came out to see them, to wave and shout their greetings. In the AL Jummariya district, on the outer edge of one of the slums - the upper level of the lower class, as one soldier put it - they pressed around the tanks again, young boys in football shirts, one clutching a ball. "Football," a soldier said, and the small boys all cheered. From the narrow lanes, criss-crossed with telegraph lines and festooned with television aerials, more children ran out, mothers urging them on. Only once did anyone show signs of disapproval, a father appearig from out of a building and striding through the crowd, snatching his son by the arm and clipping him round the head as he dragged him away. As they moved along the dirty streets the young boys raced alongside, desperate to keep up. The man with the flowers approached from the side of the road, and the tanks slowed to accept his gift. When they stopped again, it was in an area of town which seemed to house some of the city's middle class. Families were standing by the gates of their more substantial homes, their gardens green against the concrete uniformity of their homes. Even there, though, rubbish was piled high in the gutters and in the centre of the road. In the heart of another crowd, a man was pushing his way to the front. His English was good, and he was clearly an educated man. His name was Jamal Hussein, and he was no friend of the old regime, he said. He wanted to help the British, he said. "We are not resisting the British, the British army is welcome," he told the soldiers. "But we are worried about what the future is because a new Iraqi government has not come yet. People want democracy, nobody wants the Baath party. "If there are Fedayeen still here they have thrown away their guns and surrendered because their leaders have run away and they are not fighting for a cause." There were maybe 3000 Baath party members in the city, he said, but they were staying in their houses, they were afraid. But people were still worried that they might not yet be finished. "People will give information about the Baath party because they don't want them to reorganise. If they can reorganise, the British army will be in trouble," he said. He was worried, too, about the looting and lawlessness that had come to the city since the Iraqi regime in Basra crumbled. People were taking the law into their own hands, he said. "People are throwing stones at thieves, today we caught three thieves at the bank," he said. "We need the British army to keep police around the banks and important buildings. They are coming to liberate us, not to let in thieves. That is one of the drawbacks of war. "Most people are uneducated. They think it is Saddam Hussein's property but it is not, it is people's property. They have detroyed the telephone exchange and there are other urgent things we need. If the British army wants to be welcome they have to help with these things." But the British army knows it must get the city back on its feet, and quickly. They have learnt the lessons of Az Zubayr, the neighbouring town which gave them so much trouble until they managed to get in the humanitarian aid and switch back on the water supplies. Within days, they found they were able to walk safely down streets where earlier they had faced concerted attack. The man who led the British push into Basra, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Riddell-Webster, believes they will be successful, given time. Sitting in a plastic chair outside his Warrior parked up in a compound in the east of the city, the commanding officer of the Black Watch was pondering how quickly the situation had changed. A couple of days earlier he had been coordinating what should have been just another raid into the city, but as the Scottish regiment pushed on further and further into the city and the resistance began to crumble, he seized his chance. Calling up the rest of his battlegroup, which he had brought forward in case the opportunity arose to push on further, he gave the order to advance. Within hours British troops were in control of most of Basra. Yesterday he was in reflective mood. "Pretty good, wasn't it," he said, smiling. They had started out to stage another raid, he said, but he had received information that a bomb attack the night before had taken out a large swathe of the Basra hierarchy. "It made us think that if we pushed harder it might be possible to do a lot more than the raid," he said. "Instead of having just the one squadron and one company, as we had originally intended, we had the whole battlegroup standing by. "We had to break through a crust as I always expected - there were numerous RPG attacks and a lorry had been pushed across the main road in and mined and there were a number of infantry, I suppose they should be called, with AKs and all of that took us the best aprt of the morning. "But having gone all the way in we decided to push a bit harder. We turned south and headed for the centre of town. And the further south we went the more pleased to see us people seemed. "Our experience in AZ where we had to fight quite hard and then they disappeared made us think that it might happen and all the reports suggested that if we did push quite hard the resistance might collapse. " I think that the brigade commander certaily wasn't holding me back. We have all wanted to get into Basra and one of the first principles of warfare is to exploit success." He was sorry for the loss of life among other British units, he said, but they seemed to be through the worst of the fighting. "I'm sure there will be some lunatics with their AKs and RPGs but it will really depend on how the local people react and whether they believe we are here and are prepared to stand up for themselves." But he also acknowledged that things could have turned out very differently. Tons of ammunition and weapons have already been recovered, and yesterday British troops were still finding many more hauls tucked away in schools and other buildings which had been taken over by the militia. "Had the regular army stood and fought and used those weapons, it would have been much more difficult," he said. "Our huge advantage has been the virtual invulnerability of the armour to RPGs and we have been able to shrug it off and drive through it. "But I'm jolly glad that we didn't come up against anything bigger. I think they had it, they just didn't know how to use it." Back on the streets, more British units were lumbering out on patrol, more crowds were gathering, more people were cheerig and waving. The army knows it will be in Basra for some time to come, that they cannot sit back and take success for granted, but for now, as the Americans push further and further into Baghdad, they hope that their war may be over.
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