British Leave Iraq to Iraqis (and Americans)

Damien McElroy on the Telegraph reveals the tattered cloak behind the "turning over" ceremony in Basra:

American troops may have to be sent to Basra once British force levels are halved next year, the Army's senior general in the region has conceded for the first time.

At a ceremony on Sunday, Iraq's security forces are to assume overall command of Basra for the first time since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003.

The move, known in military jargon as "going PIC", which stands for Provincial Iraqi Control, paves the way for UK troop numbers in Iraq's second city to fall to 2,500 by the spring. Maj Gen Graham Binns, the commanding officer of forces in south-east Iraq, said that the Iraqi army had been rated capable of imposing order on the city without back-up from UK forces stationed at Basra air station and in
Kuwait.

But a severe bout of violence would trigger a call for the fire-power of allies in the US-led coalition."We are a coalition and if additional troops are required, they could come from within our reserve or from within the coalition," Gen Binns
said....

...In August, the retired US general, Jack Keane, said: "From a military perspective I know what the commanders are trying to avoid is having to send reinforcements to the south from forces that are needed in the central part of Iraq. That situation could arise if the situation gets worse in Basra, if and when British troops leave.

"The Army has already adopted its post-PIC posture. Preparations for an Iraqi operation early next month to confront Basra's so-called "irreconcilables" - locals who pose the greatest threat to security - are under way with the UK lined up to provide surveillance, intelligence and aerial support.

Basra is the ninth of Iraq's 18 provinces to resume responsibility for its own security but the significance of the switch goes beyond symbolism. Key sections of Route Tampa, the main military supply route from Kuwait, run through the province....

Basra is Iraq's only deep-water port.

The South Africa Mail & Guardian contains a different report:

The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed on Sunday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of four-and-a-half years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV....

...Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:
· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;
· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;
· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.

In the interview he said the main problem the Iraqi security forces now faced was the struggle to wrest control back from the militia. He appealed for the British to help him do that: "We need the British to help us to watch our borders - both sea and land and we need their intelligence and air support and to keep training the Iraqi police."

...Khalaf, who has survived 20 assassination attempts since he became police chief six months ago, said Britain's intentions had been good but misguided. "I don't think the British meant for this mess to happen. When they disbanded the Iraqi police and military after Saddam fell the people they put in their place were not loyal to the Iraqi government. The British trained and armed these people in the extremist groups and now we are faced with a situation where these police are loyal to their parties not their country."

He said the most shocking aspect of the breakdown of law and order in Basra was the murder of women for being unIslamic. "They are being killed because they are accused of behaving in an immoral way. When they kill them they put underwear and indecent clothes on them."

In his office Khalaf showed the Guardian a computer holding the files of 48 unidentified women. "Some of them have even been killed with their children because their killer says that they come out of an adulterous relationship," he said.

Vince Cable, the acting Lib Dem leader, called for a timetable to bring all British troops home from Iraq, adding: "If we are handing power back to the Iraqis, why are 4,500 British troops needed for what is essentially a training mission?"