Colonel Iron: the saviour of Basra?
The media and the public at large has been scathing about Britain’s involvement in Iraq: it is widely deemed both a political and military disaster, and the only option for British troops now seems to be a full—and humiliating—withdrawal. While terrible mistakes were made, this is not the whole story, reports Anthony King in an in-depth feature for our latest issue. In particular, it ignores the heroics of one man: Colonel Richard Iron, and the hitherto untold story of the dramatic “Charge of the Knights” attack to take back Basra.
Give the success of this bold mission, the last thing the British government should now be contemplating is total disengagement from Basra; not least because 178 British soldiers and several thousand Basrawis died fighting there. We now have a second chance to get it right in Iraq.
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The British Armed Forces have a long and glorious history of incompetence, failure and swagger. The only resounding success ever achieved has been against barefooted enemies, i.e., africans,maoiris,australian aboriginies,indians,chinese,arabs, and of course the poorly shod french(but everyone defeats the french).When it comes to those shoe wearing enemies the Brits don’t seem to do so well: Americans, Germans, Boers…you get the picture. If not for the Americans England would have been defeated in both world wars. No wonder Britain today is kowtowing to their muslim invaders–the Americans won’t be coming to help anytime soon, either.Any victories the Brits manage are more of a fluke than anything else, the results of even dumber opponents like the italians and argentines.Rebuttals, anyone?
a very well-written & insightful piece. A shocking lack of judgment when he author articulates how Mahdi Army miscalculated …. this is too sensitive to be in print or ‘discussed’ at those infamous conferences. All you are doing is provding more fodder in body bags that pressured familiees will now have to allow photos of … Other than that serious error of judgment this was equal to Michael Yon’s body of reporting work.
What has happened to the Western World? It is lcoked in stupefying conventional thinking about Iraq (and even Afghanistan). You misreaad the preceding if you think I am a cheerleader, but the issue is the absolute lack of objective critical thinking …. and a healthy dose of will power. Shred Bush as much as you want but he singlehandedly (with McCain & Lieberman) meant the difference ultimately in Iraq. Maliki, et al, needed time which Bush gave him. If you read into this whole period when everyone turned sour on GWB and his political fortunes tanked, it is shocking that the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were actually sabotaging Bush on the surge. What is the critical objective point I am railing about? I would not wish this scenario on any US President – whether it is the current occupant Prez 44 or would have been Ralph Nader or your choice…. the military leadership of the JCS actively tried to sandbag GWB on the surge. The politically correct left of center version is verified by Bob Woodward … but it was worse than this. I sure hope Prez 44 is not put into this kind of really unconstitutional predicament where the military does not follow its duly elected leadership. Some day Gates will have to address what was going on. He was just coming on then in the vacuum with Rumsfeld departure but no US Prez should have been hung out to dry the way GWB was. Mark my words, a very bad precedent was set and will come back to haunt the US military and the these military leaders ….. if only the media can report more than their Clare Short view of Iraq.