Basra, Britain's Mesopotamian mess revisited

Basra, Britain's Mesopotamian mess revisited
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - Alarms are ringing in London that the British army is being severely defeated in Iraq, as the city of Basra (where its 7th Armored Brigade has been based since 2003) slips rapidly into uncontrollable sectarian violence.

Basra has always been troublesome. From there, two uprisings were launched against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 1999, only to be crushed with great force by the currently imprisoned dictator. British officials, though, refuse to accept the reality that since entering the city on April 6, 2003, they have done nothing to eradicate sectarian militias, and violence is now exploding in the southern Iraqi city, with nobody able to bring it to a halt.

Unrest escalated when a British helicopter was shot down in Basra on May 6 by a shoulder-launched missile, killing five British troops. British Defense Minister Des Browne, learning from his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld, played down the event, calling it "an isolated incident" that had been "magnified" by the press. Coinciding with Browne's statement was a roadside bomb that killed two British soldiers in Basra this Monday, bringing the number of British deaths in Iraq since 2003 to 111.

British troops can no longer travel on foot, for fear of ambushes, and have to use helicopters as taxis. As London digests this "magnified" reality, it plans to present the Iraqi police force in the south with 814 new cars, costing a total of US$145 million.

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Seems to me I heard that Iraq wasn't having a civil war!

I also heard that the Brits were oh so much better equipped than Yanks to deal with Arabs, Muslims, and so on.

I'll be dammed it seems I heard wrong on both accounts!