BRITAIN'S 'MOMENT OF ULTIMATE HUMILIATION' IN IRAQ

In 2008, a dramatic failure in Basra finally set the British army on a path of critical soul searching.

No pomp, no ceremony, nobody's interested: British Army sheepishly hand control of the oil-rich southern province of Basra over to the United States Marine Corps in March 2009. Jehad Nga / The New York Times / Redux

This is a story about the nadir, the end of days. Monday, March 24, 2008, marked five years to the month after the British army arrived in Iraq, preaching to the Americans their apparent expertise in counterinsurgency operations and understanding of the manifold ways of, in the historical British upper-class vernacular, “the Arab.” This is the story of how that complacency—the claimed legacy of imperial policing and Belfast; of Greece-to-your-Rome and barely disguised Anglo-American contempt—became apparent.

The British Army fell foul to that bafflingly common 21st-century failing: It exuded superiority toward an exterior entity, then felt genuine surprise when that mean-spiritedness did not generate admiration in return.

And as the British Army in Basra, southern Iraq, experienced what some observers would later describe as the greatest British military disaster since Suez in 1956, or the fall of Singapore in 1942—the institution itself would, on a wider level, start to engage in a wholesale program of reform.

In 2008, for the British Army, the paths of failure and improvement crossed.

This week in March was meant to be Brigadier Julian Free’s rest and recuperation slot, a mid-tour opportunity to go back to Europe for the 45-year-old commander of the British Army’s 4th Mechanised Brigade. However, Major General Barney White-Spunner, in charge of the division and Free’s boss, asked to swap with him, and, well, White-Spunner outranked Free. So on March 24, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki inbound from Baghdad to Basra with half his government in tow, it was Free who stood waiting for him, while White-Spunner was in the Austrian ski resort of Zürs.

This post was excerpted from Akam’s new book:

Maliki was no fan of the British Army. He publicly blamed it for the baleful situation in southeast Iraq, and Basra in particular. But at that moment, he hoped to salvage a clearance operation in the city, impulsively launched to finally address the festering sore that Basra had become. The Prime Minister wished to get from the airport to Basra Palace, Saddam’s old edifice in the heart of the city, on the banks of the Shatt al Arab. But his operation was starting to career off the rails and mayhem in the city meant the only viable way was via helicopters from the British base at the airport.

Free met with Prime Minister Maliki at the terminal building, and the PM shook his hand, apparently not having realized who the officer was. Free, however, clasped Maliki’s hand with both of his, in the Iraqi fashion—thereby providing better purchase because the Prime Minister could not pull away, allowing Free to get a message across to him. “We would do whatever was required to support the Iraqi forces entering Basra,” Free said he told him.

A day earlier, Iraqi troops began turning up in quantity at the huge British cantonment at Basra Airport. Overall, 28,000 Iraqi and American soldiers (all bar 700 of them were Iraqi nationals) would arrive within a week. Outside, the 14th Division of the Iraqi Army—trained by the British—was deployed in Basra to quell the insurrection in the city, but one of the division’s three constituent brigades would simply dissolve, ceasing to exist as a military entity. In the first week of the operation, 50 dead and 650 more injured would pass through the British hospital at the airfield.

Inside the terminal, Lieutenant General Mohan al-Furayji, the head of the Basra Operations Command, an Iraqi headquarters that commanded all Iraqi security forces in Basra province, including army, police, and border forces, stood in a corner. Lieutenant Furayji was meant to be the man who would help bring Basra under control, but at that moment, he thought he was going to be sacked by Mr Maliki, and pleaded with Free to intervene. Free didn't get a chance to make a case for Lieutenant Furayji: Prime Minister Maliki, once he prised his hand back, wanted no more contact with the British leadership. His intention was to swiftly transfer his party onto the helicopters and get to the palace.

The Prime Minister remained in one corner of the terminal with Lieutenant Furayji. Free was with Ben Ryan, a major from the Royal Dragoon Guards. Prime Minister Maliki rose only when the helicopters were ready, and departed with Lieutenant Furayji. Free and Ryan were left at the airport. The Iraqi Prime Minister has just publicly snubbed the British Army's commanding officer in southern Iraq.

“What now?” Ryan asked.

“I’m not entirely sure, Ben,” Free replied.

A band from the Royal Marines wait for the arrival of VIPs to the day's ceremony at a ceremony transferring coalition command of the airport in Basra in March 2009. (Jehad Nga / The New York Times / Redux)

This Iraqi operation was meant to take place months later and with careful preparation, but had at Prime Minister Maliki’s behest been rushed into immediate and chaotic action. The Americans decided that no matter how disorganized it was, Mr Maliki’s political life was invested in it, and Mr Maliki was their man. To maintain the trillion-dollar venture of the war in Iraq, the Prime Minister’s operation could not be allowed to fail. As a result, Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin—the commander of Multi-National Corps–Iraq, the organization responsible for command and control of coalition operations in the country, and second in seniority only to General David Petraeus—descended on Basra. Lieutenant General Austin, now President Biden’s secretary of defense, was an alien concept in British military circles in 2008: a black general.

Free travelled with Austin to the palace by helicopter. The American said to the Brit: “Look, Julian, I don’t think you can come in,” Brigadier Free recalled Lieutenant General Austin saying when they arrived. Brigadier Free was stunned and felt humiliated but said that he understood; Prime Minister Maliki didn't want to see any Brits. (Austin didn't respond to a request to be interviewed).

The scene at the palace was chaotic, with local sheikhs coming in to see Prime Minister Maliki, and the full Iraqi government effectively in residence. Iraqi soldiers lounged around, but the site was also under periodic rocket attack. If one struck Lieutenant General Austin, Free recalled thinking, just let me be next to him. The aftermath of such a situation would be unfaceable.

Prime Minister Maliki kept Lieutenant Austin waiting around for hours, but they eventually held their meeting. Getting the lieutenant back to the airfield proved difficult, though: American pilots had taken both him and Brigadier Free from the airfield, but a U.S. helicopter refused to land to collect them, citing the attacks, so Free summoned a British Merlin helicopter. Basra Palace is really a series of structures in a vast enclosed compound with an overall perimeter of 8 km and, amid some confusion, Austin, Free, and their entourage were taken to the wrong landing site, so the British helicopter initially took off without them. Free had to call the aircraft back, and Austin was bundled in.

The helicopter was also carrying Iraqi wounded back to the airfield, so Austin ended up holding an intravenous drip for the duration of the flight. In accordance with British practice to avoid anti-aircraft fire, the Merlin jinked all over the place, at one point going underneath a power line. After they landed at the airfield, Free said that Austin turned to a senior soldier accompanying him on the trip and asked him to rank the ride in the British heli in terms of all-time life experiences, on a scale of 1 to 10.

“That was a 10, sir.”

“No, that was an 11”, the US military man shot back.

The lighter interlude was brief. Back in Free’s office, the British officer said that Austin asked him how he was going to address the situation in the city. According to Free, he told Austin he would do what he had been forbidden to do so far: send British troops into town and partner with Iraqi units. Free said Austin asked him whether he had the authority to do that, and that he replied that even although he did not, he would “do it anyway.”

By this stage in his tour, Free knew that for the Americans, “your word” and “telling the truth” were absolutely vital. In return, he listed his requirements, telling Austin he needed Blue Force Tracker, the American technology for monitoring the location of friendly units, as well as personal locator beacons, so that if forces operating with Iraqis were kidnapped, they could be traced.

Austin flew back north to Baghdad, but he was not the only American to visit Basra. The United States needed to make this work, and suddenly, for the first time in this half-decade-long venture, Basra was the focus of events in Iraq: the “corps’ main effort.”

On March 28, Major General George Flynn, Austin’s deputy at Multi-National Corps–Iraq and a short, punchy New Yorker, flew in with Colonel Chuck Otterstedt, a planning officer from the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps staff, another aide, Flynn’s field security detail, and an interpreter.

Moment of ultimate humiliation and embarrassment

Flynn later attended a meeting of senior British and American commanders, sitting in the seat of White-Spunner, who was still on vacation. Free introduced himself, then chaired the meeting. Exactly what Flynn said at this stage is disputed—Free’s recollections and those of Flynn differed—but he referred to Britain’s capacity for “overwatch,” where a military force is kept out of the combat area but can intervene in support of another if required.

“I have been sent here to ensure overwatch does not fail again,” is the version that Free remembered, and which later found its way into an official presentation on the event. “Overwatch is all about situational awareness, which you do not have.”

“It was,” Lieutenant Colonel Paul Harkness, a British officer who was present, recalled, “the moment of ultimate humiliation and embarrassment.”

Whatever Flynn precisely said, American graffiti penned onto the blue wall of a portable toilet that Eric Whyne, a U.S. Marine captain, saw around that time was less equivocal.

Q: HOW MANY BRITS DOES IT TAKE TO CLEAR BASRA?

A: NONE. THEY COULDN’T HOLD IT SO THEY SENT IN THE US MARINES.

TOP OF THE MORNING CHAPS!

This post was excerpted from Akam’s new book, Changing of the Guard: The British Army Since 9/11.

Simon Akam is a British journalist based in London. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, GQ, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He held a gap-year commission in the British army as a teenager.