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In another valuable contribution to the remarkably sparse debate on the British occupation of Iraq, MP and former Grenadier Guard Adam Holloway has published a short paper headed, "The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq."

Holloway takes the view that the Labour Government has suborned the Armed Forces from the very top to half the way down, creating a system that often enforces what is politically convenient, not what is militarily right. This systemic failure, he argues, began with the invasion of Iraq and continues to this day. This failure, he tells us, continues to prevent us from learning from our mistakes, and is condemning us to repeat them, as we are doing in Afghanistan.

More on Defence of the Realm.

[Loband: Object Removed -]

Watching the Chilcot inquiry from afar, and making very little sense of it, one gets the impression that the drama being played out is entirely for the benefit of the participants, a narrow section of the media and a few obsessives.

In essence, there is actually nothing to inquire about in this first phase. We all knew that, for Bush Junior, Iraq was unfinished business – left over from his daddy's time. It was, therefore, only a matter of time before an invasion was launched.

Given that Blair was then in his trans-Atlantic "sucking-up" mode, having got bored with the squabbling of the "colleagues" in the EU, it was a given than whatever Bush decided, Tony would follow.

Where it all came unstuck was Blair's tranzie mentality and his craving for international legitimacy. Thus, instead of declaring, in ringing tones, that the invasion was a matter of national interest, and that a sovereign state needed no higher authority to go to war than its own national law, Blair sought UN approval for the venture. Such was Bush's need for a reliable ally that he went along with it.

Having thus accepted the jurisdiction of the UN, however, the Bush-Blair team had a singular problem, in that the real reason for the invasion – regime change – was not a permissible causus belli in the UN catalogue. This meant they had to invent one that fitted ... hence WMDs, allowing them to invoke the "self-defence" card.

The rest, as they say, is history – except that a powerful and vocal lobby is not content to wait for the verdict of the historians (who will need 30 years before Cabinet papers are released). They want answers now, and in particular, they want an admission from Blair that he dun wrong – so that they can then proclaim the mantra that this was an "illegal" war.

The one thing the obsessives are not going to get, of course, is that admission, which leaves Adrian Hamilton in The Independent whingeing: "The one thing Chilcot won't reveal is the truth."

So the game is on - to get as many of the players as possible to make damaging allegations, just short of the "conclusive" proof that only a Blair admission can bring. Cue, therefore, the FCO mandarins, who are only too keen to punish their former master for the unforgivable sin of backing George Bush.

Star of the show yesterday was Euroluvvy Christopher Meyer whom Chris Ames of The Guardian believes has produced a "game changer". Meyer's evidence "has surely made it impossible to claim that Iraq was about WMD and not regime change", writes Ames, although even he has the grace to add: "Or did we know all that already?" We did.

Nevertheless, such evidence invokes a strangled cry from the Scarygraph's Con Coughlin, who then remarks on being slightly surprised by "the way in which a succession of some of our most senior former diplomats has gleefully attacked the reputation of the former prime minister they were paid to serve."

Like Mrs Thatcher before him, Coughlin observes: "Mr Blair was always suspicious of where the true loyalties of the Foreign Office lay, and the evidence so far presented at the Chilcot inquiry suggest he was right to do so."

Tortured grammar apart, a more naïve commentary would be hard to imagine. When could a prime minister ever trust the FCO? Clearly, Coughlin has never watched "Yes, prime minister" (see above). And the episode played out yesterday in the Chilcot Inquiry could so easily have been entitled: "The mandarins' revenge".

IRAQ THREAD

BasraPalaceR_468x354[i-BasraPalaceR_468x354]The one thing that worried me about the emergence of more detail on the British occupation of Iraq was that the great labour in writing Ministry of Defeat would somehow be invalidated.

But, with the release via The Daily Telegraph of the Army's review of operations, I need not have been concerned. So far, what I have written stands up well against the inside information now being revealed.

What we have so far is a review of the earlier part of the occupation, under the title: "Stability operations in Iraq (OP Telic 2-5) – An analysis from a land perspective", which effectively covers the first two years of operations, up to mid-2005.

However, while we have been treated to some tantalising glimpses of the conduct of operations, this is no comprehensive evaluation. There is no great heart-searching and no recognition of the broader failure, which even then was becoming apparent.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Stephen-Farrell[i-Stephen-Farrell]One should applaud the skill, planning and sheer bravery that went into to rescue this morning of New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell (pictured), and lament the death of a special forces soldier who died in the raid in order to secure his freedom and, most probably, save his life.

Reports, necessarily, are sketchy, but we are told that a British "commando" was killed in the pre-dawn raid, set up after Farrell and his Afghan interpreter, Mohammad Sultan, were kidnapped by the Taleban last Saturday after travelling to the site of the air strike near Kunduz in which up to 125 people were reported killed. Mohammed Sultan, unfortunately, was also killed in the raid.

Mr Farrell will now, undoubtedly, be fêted for his bravery and fortitude. Doubtless, he will dine out on his experiences for many a month and, in the fullness of time, launch a "best-selling" book, which will be lauded by his fellow hacks, who will heap praise upon him in a glowing series of reviews.

Small recognition will be given to the member of the special forces who died for his freedom – the man, as is the convention, will not even be named. And while Farrell undoubtedly takes risks, his courage is always tempered by the fact that, should he get himself into a predicament – as he did here – there are always men such as our anonymous special forces soldier, who are prepared to forefit their lives to extricate him.

One does not in any way denigrate Mr Farrell's own courage. We need journalists such as him who are prepared to put themselves at risk to gather information on the wars fought in our name. They are the foot soldiers in a different kind of battle, and they are an important part of the matrix from which we learn, and are able to build up an understanding – albeit imperfect – of what is going on.

This we noted in an earlier piece, when we applauded the efforts of Tom Coughlan, for his vivid reports from the front, putting himself at considerable risk in gathering his accounts.

But we would take issue with the comments of Stephen Grey, journalist and author of Operation Snakebite quoted – or perhaps misquoted – in The Daily Telegraph. He tells us, of Farrell, that: "He is the sort of person who realises that you have to get out of your comfort zone beyond the wire in order to work out the truth."

The issue here, of course, is the word "truth". Mr Farrell, any more than the rest of us, is not in a position to acquire that precious commodity. It is not there for the taking, but emerges only – if at all – from the labours of many, over a period of time. It is built on information from multifarious sources, needing most often the perspective which only time and distance can give.

As a custodian of the truth, in fact, Mr Farrell has a poor record. As a journalist in Iraq – where he was briefly kidnapped – he was one of the first to report on the growing power of the militias, reporting in May 2003, for The Times of the return to Iraq of Mohammed Bakr al Hakim, de facto leader of the Badr Corps, which was to give the British some grief in Basra.

Although Farrell continued covering the war in Iraq, reporting for The Times and subsequently for the New York Times, he was one of the many journalists who misread the signs and failed completely to understand the importance and political significance of Malki's operation Charge of the Knights in late March 2008.

Thus, in early April 2008 did Farrell, alongside his NYT colleague James Glanz, famously (mis)report that the "crackdown on the Mahdi Army militia is creating potentially destabilizing political and military tensions in Iraq."

Farrell, in common with many of his colleagues, from outside the "comfort zone beyond the wire", added much information on the situation – with some fine reporting and good follow-up, but missed the bigger picture.

No more now than then does any one journalist offer the "truth". But too many of them, from the narrow perspective they gain from being briefly at the sharp end, picking up part of the picture directly and thus contributing to the flow of information on which we all so much rely, believe they have a greater claim to being its custodian than perhaps is warranted.

And then, in the final analysis, the ultimate custodians are – for all their failings – the military. For only as a result of their bravery do the likes of Farrell live to tell their tales.

COMMENT THREAD

Snatch+attack[i-Snatch+attack]The Times ignores the obvious irony that, on this day of all days – the 70th anniversary of the declaration of war on Germany – it should come up with a headline: "The Army is making in the same old mistakes Afghanistan, say soldiers."

The irony is there in plenty as the first phase of the war against Germany was characterised by the Army making the "same old mistakes", starting with the disastrous campaign in Norway, the chaos which led to the retreat at Dunkirk, the shambolic Greek campaign, the unnecessary loss of Crete and the sequence of defeats in the Western desert, remedied only by el Alamein in 1942 when the 8th Army, fortified by huge stocks of US materiel, managed to prevail against a German force which had over-reached itself.

From a historical perspective, it is probably fair to say that we did not win the Second World War so much as Hitler lost it, not least by his determination to invade Russia, thus tying up 150 divisions which, had they been deployed in Northern France in 1944, would have thrown us back into the sea.

Almost – but not quite repeating history - in Iraq in 2003 – a victorious British Army, having so easily won the war – went on to lose the peace, not having learned, or retained the lessons of previous campaigns, culminating in our abject retreat from Basra and the expulsion of British forces earlier this year, the final act of which has yet to be played out. As before, only the timely intervention of the Americans saved us from a more humiliating rout, which has enabled us to pretend that our occupation actually achieved something.

But now, seeping into the public domain is the slow recognition by the Army that the occupation of Iraq was not "a glowing success, as some within Whitehall and PJHQ [the MoD’s Permanent Joint Headquarters] may try to claim."

That is the view of Daniel Marston, a former senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, articulated in the current edition of the British Army Review, a "Restricted" magazine that is not published openly but which Michael Evans of The Times has managed to obtain and report upon.

Thus does he convey the essence, that the Britain Army is failing to learn from the "military mistakes" made in Iraq in developing ways to defeat the Taleban in Afghanistan, according to a series of critical articles published in an internal army journal.

Dare we say it, but that is exactly the thesis we offer in Ministry of Defeat which, from the limited review that Evans offers us, goes far beyond that which the Army is yet ready to admit.

We do get from Marston, though, that "Observers expected that the British forces going into Afghanistan and Iraq, given their history of success in counter-insurgency, would automatically be better suited to waging wars among the people than their American counterparts."

But then he says that: "The British Army, in practice, appeared to be losing its way in terms of practical application of key facets of COIN [counter-insurgency] ... Many officers and NCOs ... were apparently unaware of important operational and strategic aspects of COIN. The British Army cannot turn its back on a difficult campaign and disregard lessons, some of which are admittedly very tough to swallow ... ".

We also learn from Evans that there is condemnation in the journal of Britain’s strategy in Iraq, particularly the decision to withdraw troops from Basra in September 2007, leaving the city to be taken over by extremist Shia militia. This, we are told, echoes criticisms made by senior American commanders at the time, which were rejected by the Government.

But, if that is as far as the criticism goes, then they are not there yet. As we never tire of saying, the strategic rot started with the decision to abandon al Amarah in 2006 (the picture is from 2005 in Alamarah), which set the pattern for the retreat which continued into Basra. Yet so few people – even amongst the troops who were in theatre at the time – knew what was going on that it is unsurprising that the full implications of that decision are not yet fully understood.

Even with the limited and highly controlled criticisms in the journal, however, Gen Dannatt admits in a foreword that the articles "make uncomfortable reading" but, we are told, "he welcomes the debate." Of course, the debate has barely started and, if it was that welcome, the brave General might have done more to promote it while he was still in office.

He does "reveal" though that a review of doctrine applied in Iraq and Afghanistan, called "Operation Entirety", has already helped "to focus the Army on the enduring campaign in Afghanistan". That review will be published soon, we learn.

Yet this is the review that has been six years in the making and, to judge from the lacklustre strategy being applied in Afghanistan, by no means all the lessons from Iraq have been either acknowledged or learned. But since it would appear that only now is the Army beginning to allow muted criticisms in a "Restricted" document, it has a long, long way to go before we get to the bottom of the failures in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

With historians still chewing over the entrails of the Second World War, it may be some time yet before we get to grips with the extent of those failures, leaving Trooper David Maddock in the current journal to put down a marker.

He declares: "British forces in Afghanistan today are fighting an asymmetric war, a war we have fought many times before in Arabia, Malaya, Northern Ireland and Iraq ... If we have such a vast amount of experience, why are we not implementing the lessons learnt by those who have fought and died before us?"

But the last word has to go to US Colonel Peter Mansoor, who says that, "Only through a thorough appreciation of the mistakes it made in Iraq can the British Army turn defeat into victory as it fights the untidy wars of the early 21st century. It should not ... gloss over its recent experience in Iraq ... Although the conditions [in Afghanistan] are different, the lessons of Iraq are still relevant."

"The British failure in Basra was not due to the conduct of British troops, which was exemplary. It was, rather, a failure by senior British civilian and military leaders to understand the political dynamics ... in Iraq, compounded by arrogance that led to an unwillingness to learn and adapt, along with increasing reluctance to risk blood and treasure to conduct effective counter-insurgency warfare ... ".

That arrogance is still there, in spades, and all we are seeing is the smallest of cracks in the edifice. But it is a start, even if it risks being too little, too late. We cannot afford 70 years before we finally admit that mistakes were made. And nor can we afford the luxury of dwelling on those events all those years ago, while ignoring the present.

COMMENT THREAD

Iraq_archaeology[i-Iraq_archaeology]Remember all those stories of Iraqi museums and archaeological sites being looted after the Coalition invasion; all those accusations of chaos brought in by the nasty Americans and their equally nasty allies? Many people do remember them and repeat them. They remember slightly less well that there were subsequent stories - much smaller articles on less popular pages - that a good many of the museum treasures had not been looted but hidden by curators and were now being repositioned.

Of course there had been looting in Iraq - back in the nineties when apparently illicitly lifted treasures appeared in Western arts sales rooms. Except that they had been lifted by members of Saddam Hussein's government.

Now we get an interesting story about the archaelogical sites. Thanks to Clarice Feldman's posting on American Thinker we can read an article in the Wall Street Journal that tells us that stories of those lootings were seriously exaggerated as well.

A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists from the U.S. and U.K. who specialize in Mesopotamia found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites -- eight of them -- had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news.

I'll bet it's caused confusion. Almost as much confusion as the acknowledgement by newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times that the surge in Iraq is working and the situation is improving by leaps and bounds. Not to mention caused by the fact that Barack Obama's website has wiped all criticisms of the surge.

The rest of the article gives an account of archaeologists producing results of how much has been looted and destroyed before going to see for themselves (is that how archaeology is done these days?) and how surprised they were to find that those preliminary calculations were wrong.

According to the Art Newspaper article, "The international team ... had been expecting to find considerable evidence of looting after 2003 but to their astonishment and relief there was none. Not a single recent dig hole was found at the eight sites, and the only evidence of illegal digging came from holes which were partially covered with silt and vegetation, which means they [were] several years old." Furthermore, the most recent damage "probably dated back to 2003," to just before and after the invasion when the Iraqi army maneuvered for the allied attack. (According to other experts, looting probably took place when the Iraqi army first moved out of areas near sites to counter the invasion.)

Neither the British Museum pair nor Prof. Stone responded to my calls seeking comment. The British Museum press official for the Middle Eastern department cautioned that the official report had not yet been compiled, but it seemed that the article was generally accurate. Certainly none of the experts have denied any of it. In the article, Dr. Curtis "admits that he was 'very surprised' at the lack of recent looting, but stresses that ... 'it may not be typical of the country as a whole, and the situation could be worse further north.'"

No doubt. But how could previous assessments have been so wrong, and why would one expect anything to be worse elsewhere? In phone conversations with me, both Donny George and Lawrence Rothfield argued that the eight sites were all known to be well-protected. Dr. George was able to itemize each one: "Ur was an Iraqi airbase and then a U.S. airbase. Uruk Warka was protected by guards from nearby tribes -- we always knew that. Ouelli is largely prehistoric and of no use to looters..." And so on. But Dr. George, perhaps the world's leading authority on the subject, also conceded that the greatest damage done by looters had generally occurred in the 1990s, in Saddam's time. Prof. Rothfield said that the no-fly zones back then had allowed illicit digging to occur.

As an erswhile amateur archaeologist (well, a gopher on archaeological sites, if we are going to be honest) and a great admirer of heroic archaeologists, I was saddened to see that their successors have joined the NGO-tranzi brigade of using inaccurate data to oppose Western actions. But then, what can you expect from an organization called the World Archaeological Committee (WAC)?

Unlike my colleague's writings, mine are reasonably predictable and it would have been entirely out of character for me to keep quiet on this anniversary, though, naturally enough, the question of toys will not arise in my posting. So, let me, with boring predictability, make the odd comment or two.

First of all, on the question of "unfinished business", it is worth adding that some Shi-ite Arabs did rise against Saddam after the first Gulf War, but had no support from the victorious coalition who had urged them to rebel. They were crushed. At the time, numerous commentators who understood Iraq and the Arab world said that in ten years' time the United States would regret not finishing the business with Saddam. Ten years, as it turned out, was a reasonably accurate prediction.

Secondly, it is time once again, to refer to the importance of the blogosphere in the propaganda war. It is the blogs in the United States, particularly on the right, that have shown up the MSM as being a player rather than a reporter with an agenda of its own, which is rarely on the side of the Western coalition.

The media today is not like that of the Second World War and why should it be. We must accept that. But the journalists must accept that the political picture is not like that of the Vietnam war. The blogosphere's victorious assault on Dan Rather raised a number of issues about accuracy of reporting and political campaigns waged surreptitiously. That, in turn, has led to an evaluation, still going on, of the media's role in the American defeat in Vietnam.

A similar destructive undermining of the war effort in Iraq has failed because of the milblogs and of the highly knowledgeable and alert bloggers back home in the States. Sadly, no similar development has been witnessed in Britain, but that is for another posting.

My third point is very simple. It is a link to a very sober but strongly optimistic article in the Wall Street Journal by Fouad Ajami. Enjoy.

Bernard+Kouchner[i-Bernard+Kouchner]There is a good deal of excitement around because Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister is visiting Iraq. The blogs are certainly covering the story, for instance here, here and here. The Daily Telegraph even quoted an unnamed Iraqi official, who

said that Mr Kouchner was the "most important VIP" to arrive in the Iraqi capital this year, outranking earlier trips by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, as well as Dick Cheney, the US vice-president.

You wonder where they find these officials who seem to think that Foreign Ministers outrank Prime Ministers and French politicians outrank everybody else. For all of that, this was an important visit in that it seemed to consolidate the view that the French government under Sarkozy is likely to be pro-American or, at least, not particularly anti-American.

Kouchner, himself, as we have written before, supported the war in Iraq, making himself very unpopular with the bien-pensants of France, and called Saddam what he was – a bloodthirsty tyrant.

Then again, he has not said anything shattering during his visit; merely that France must start looking at international affairs in a different way. Come to think of it, that is shattering. A French politician acknowledging that France may be wrong on something and should change its point of view? Mon Dieu, quelle horreur.

Nidra Poller publishes a round-up of the stunned French reaction to the visit that had clearly been planned in some secrecy. Among other articles

Libération reminds us that Kouchner was a personal friend of UN official Sergio Viera de Mello, killed in the August 2003 attack against the UN compound, along with Nadia Younes, Fiona Watson, and Jean-Sélim Kanan, who had worked with him in Kosovo. Kouchner, former Socialist Health Minister and one of the founders of Doctors without Borders, defends the “droit d’ingérence,” defined as the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation in order to protect its inhabitants. He disagreed with France’s head-on opposition to the U.S. in 2003, and believes that if France had remained by the side of its American ally, war could have been avoided.

Le Figaro presents another aspect:

Le Figaro quotes Kouchner on the French solution for Iraq, which he shares with president Sarkozy. They believe that there is no military solution. The solution is in the hands of the Iraqis. The French will be glad to help, but it’s up to the Iraqis to solve their problem. We must be patient. We are just at the beginning of the end of the crisis. Kouchner laid a wreath at the monument to the UN victims, dedicated “To the soldiers of peace, [from] a grateful France.”

One cannot argue with that too much though Kouchner presumably does recognize that some military solution is necessary before the political one comes into play.

The article does not just remind its readers of the UN officials who were killed in August 2003 not least because the UN refused to accept American protection of its compound but also refers to the latest UN Resolution, adopted on August 10, which

authorises the UN mission to "advise, support and assist the government and people of Iraq on advancing their inclusive, political dialogue and national reconciliation".

It also authorises the UN to facilitate "regional dialogue, including on issues of border security, energy and refugees", and asks the UN to help develop ways "to resolve disputed internal boundaries" that are acceptable to the government.

This wonderful new Resolution, welcomed by Muqtada al-Sadr, who appears to think that there might be UN troops in the offing, which would most certainly not interfere with his militias, does not specify exactly what the UN is going to be doing in Iraq or how long it will keep its personnel there after a putative bomb attack. Come to think of it, there is no explanation whether the UN personnel will ever get out of the Green Zone in Baghdad.

The question we need to ask about all this activity, what with President Sarkozy lunching with Bush and Foreign Minister Kouchner making friendly noises in Iraq is whether any of it is significant in the long term.

It has been our contention on this blog that under President Sarkozy there will be changes in foreign policy but not all that many domestically because there are too many vested interests intent on keeping matters just as they are. So far, nothing has happened that has made us think we ought to change that line.

Appointing Bernard Kouchner, as we said at the time, was definitely sending a message to the world and, in particular, to the United States just as Gordon Brown appointing David Miliband and Douglas Alexander was sending out a message, though this seems to be rather a muddled one at the moment.

We tend to assume and are usually right to do so that, no matter what happens temporarily, the Americans will realize that of all European countries, Britain is the one whose interests are closest to her own and is likely to stay its staunchest ally. The special relationship has survived various ups and downs and will, we hope, continue to do so. When a man of John O’Sullivan’s calibre argues so, one must pay attention.

However, it is also worth thinking of the other developments. Firstly, the anti-Americanism that the media and Brown’s government taps into. It does not come solely from the left but is widespread on the right as well and, curiously enough, very widespread among eurosceptics, particularly those who have a very weak grasp on reality.

Then there is the ever closer union, which manifests itself in defence procurement as my colleague has written about on many many occasions. The tendency to support the absurd notion that there is such a thing as a “European interest” can be only harmful.

The United States is, naturally enough, looking to allies in different parts of the world and most of these are Anglospheric countries, like Australia and India. Europe is of ever smaller importance from the American point of view and, as a consequence, who precisely is the closest ally in Europe may become an unimportant question. If Britain, then Britain, if France then France, while Gordon Brown, David Miliband and Lord Malloch-Brown play silly-bugger games.

COMMENT THREAD

green_helmet_cat[i-green_helmet_cat]This story comes via Confederate Yankee, a consistently interesting blog and, I have to add, comments that often take the story forward. The background to this is a Reuters report that the number of civilian casualties in Iraq fell sharply in June, causing U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver to say that he was cautiously optimistic.

Not everyone likes even cautious optimism and certain sections of the drive-by media prefer to produce stories of sectarian atrocities. Well, so what, you might say. The media lives by sensationalism and if that sensationalism involves a story of twenty people being decapitated in a village, so be it.

The trouble arises, as we know, when the story is unsubstantiated and the source is a highly unreliable one. This is how Confederate Yankee describes the beginning:

The Associated Press, Reuters, and a small Iraqi Independent news agency called Voice of Iraq released stories Thursday about the massacre of 20 men near Salman Pak, who were supposedly found decapitated on the banks of the Tigris River.

But something seemed inherently wrong with the accounts I read from the Associated Press. The only two sources for the Associated Press article were anonymous police, not located in Salman Pak, but from Baghdad (more than dozen miles away) and Kut (more than 75 miles away).

Because of this odd sourcing, I asked Multi-National Corps-Iraq and the PAO liaison to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior to investigate.

He discussed the story in an earlier posting adding rather acerbically:

I'm not Associated Press reporter Sinan Salheddin, nor am I Kim Gamel, AP's Baghdad news editor, but if I was investigating a story about a 20-corpse mass murder in—let's say, Manhattan—then I'd try to find a local police officer at the scene to interview about the case.

I wouldn't rely on a desk sergeant in Staten Island who merely heard reports of other officers being dispatched to check to see if there was such a crime, nor would I rely on a beat cop in Albany who is only reporting rumors of what he heard from friends of relatives in Queens.

But the Associated Press didn't rely on the local police. Instead, they blatantly presented hearsay as the truth, and as a result, ran a story about a brutal massacre that currently appears to have never taken place.

This is not the first time that Associated Press, for one, produced stories, whose source was dubious to put it mildly, that all pointed in one direction – horrific mass murders in Iraq.

For a while the investigations produced no results and I mean just that. The headless bodies could not be found and neither could any witnesses to the atrocity.

Yesterday the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) published a rebuttal, which included the following:

Anti-Iraqi Forces are known for purposely providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation.

“Extremists promote falsehoods of mass killings, collateral damage and other violence specifically to turn Iraqis against other Iraqis,” said Rear Admiral Mark Fox, spokesperson for MNF-I. “Unfortunately, lies are much easier to state, the truth often takes time to prove,” said Fox.

Not all media reports can be immediately substantiated by Government of Iraq or Coalition Forces. They must go through a process to verify such claims, to include checking with various Iraqi Ministry’s, local police and security forces. Meanwhile, extremists have achieved their goal of spreading false information aimed at intimidating civilians and destabilizing Iraqi security.

Fair enough but have we not been told endlessly that the MSM differs from those pesky bloggers and, of course, from the military authorities in that it tries to substantiate all its stories, checks and double checks and there is no supporting evidence, says so? So we have, so we have.

What has happened since? Well, AFP that for reasons unknown managed not to carry the story gloated. Both Reuters (who managed to report that there were more than one thousand peace demonstrators near Kennenbunkport ahead of the Bush – Putin meeting) and AP have now produced a different headline: “Iraq: US military says reports of beheaded bodies were false”.

On Thursday, many Iraqi and international media outlets aired news of the bodies, quoting unnamed Iraqi police. The decapitated bodies had allegedly turned up on the banks of the Tigris River near Salman Pak, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Iraqi police officers frequently talk to media only on condition of anonymity, because of security concerns.

At the time, the Interior Ministry tried to send troops to the area to confirm the discovery, but the visit was called off because the area was too dangerous.

Reuters added a rather plaintive paragraph, which oddly enough did not appear in the original story that had showed absolute certainty in the truth of the story with no suggestion that it had not been verified.

Verifying reports in Iraq is very hard for journalists, who have been systematically targeted by different militant groups and rely extensively on local sources for information.

So the story was given by somebody who was nowhere near the scene of action and refused to give his name or explain who he was. It could not be confirmed because the situation in the area is dangerous but it was published anyway. Terrific.

COMMENT THREAD

Basra+demo[i-Basra+demo]No matter which way you look at it, one can only rejoice in the fact that Iraqis feel that they can demonstrate their political views publicly and as a crowd, whether it is the 10,000 or so in Najaf who called for Americans to pull out or several other thousands who called for the cessation of terrorist violence.

News comes of yet another demonstration in Basra and this time we can all sympathize.

Thousands of Iraqis marched peacefully through the streets of Basra on Monday, demanding the provincial governor's resignation over the poor city services, despite calls by top government officials a day earlier to call off the protest.

If they achieve this, could they possibly come and do something about our city services?

COMMENT THREAD

Basra+attack[i-Basra+attack]As the "frightened fifteen" were whisked away in military helicopters from Heathrow, after their arrival from Tehran this morning, we heard news that the "Arab street" is rejoicing in Basra after a roadside bomb killed four British service personnel and their interpreter, and seriously injured another soldier.

Two of the dead were women, from the Intelligence Corps and the Royal Army Medical Corps. The two male soldiers were from the Royal Army Medical Corps and 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.

Pictures of the scene (above) show locals cheering and rejoicing, parading with a soldier's helmet and fragments of the Warrior, in Hayaniya, a slum area on the northwestern outskirts of Basra - known as a stronghold of local (Iranian-backed) Shia militias.

According to a more detailed report in The Times the personnel died when a convoy of armoured vehicles was attacked by two devices last night. The patrol then came under attack from small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Basra+attack+3[i-Basra+attack+3]Witnesses tell of the British patrol having repulsed an earlier ambush by five insurgents in a different district of the city, wounding one of the attackers. During the second ambush, British forces returned fire while trying to evacuate the wounded.

Photographs of the scene showed a large crater in the road that was at least a three feet deep and several yards wide. Iraqi children (and adults) were taking away pieces of burned wreckage.

The Times (and others) also report than, after the attack, a British patrol was seen storming an Iraqi checkpoint close to the scene of and disarming the police there.

This now brings to six the number of British soldiers killed in Basra since Sunday, making it, as the paper observes, one of the deadliest weeks of the Iraq war for UK forces.

Basra+attack+2[i-Basra+attack+2]No commentators are making any link between the bomb incident and the Royal Navy hostages, but the loss of face embodied in the humiliating capture of the British personnel and their subsequent behaviour can only have emboldened attackers, who could see for themselves the weakness of British forces.

Appeasement brings its own penalties and, in the greater scheme of things, no one can argue that the events of the last 14 days have in any way improved the prestige of British forces, where winning the respect of the local populace is a vital precursor to dealing successfully with an insurgency.

COMMENT THREAD

HMS+Brecon[i-HMS+Brecon]In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, Lt-Cdr Mike Critchley RN Rtd, editor of Warship World makes some interesting points about the Iranian hostage debacle.

Under the heading, "Navy needs to get its laid-up patrol vessels into the Gulf", he suggests that it is madness to have laid up at Portsmouth three vessels (Brecon – pictured - Dulverton and Cottesmore) that were converted at great cost as patrol vessels to intercept suspect shipping.

He notes that we deployed one of our remaining frigates in the fleet (HMS Cornwall), armed with the latest sensors and weapons (Goalkeeper, Harpoon, Seawolf and torpedo tubes) to protect oil flowing from Iraq, but were humiliated by small craft with the simplest small arms.

Critchley writes: "our multi-million-pound vessel was unable to join the action and defend our men for lack of water under her keel, whereas something smaller would have been appropriate."

From this he concludes that, once again, the Treasury is not giving our servicemen the kit to do the job asked of them. He thus asks that these three vessels at Portsmouth should be returned to service as soon as possible for deployment to the Gulf or even the Straits of Dover - wherever the terrorist threat exists.

That is good stuff, and it does point up the theme which we have been addressing on this blog, but Lt-Cdr Critchley does not seem to be aware that we already have two modern minesweepers out in the Gulf, HMS Blyth and HMS Ramsey.

Furthermore, Critchley does not seem to realise (or, at least, acknowledge) that we are in the Gulf working as part of a coalition team. As we reported yesterday, whatever problems Commodore Nick Lambert might have had, he had no shortage of naval assets on which to call. It was not for lack of shallow draught patrol vessels that the two boats from HMS Cornwall were sent unescorted to their rendezvous with the Iranian revolutionary guard.

However, if we do take Crichley's point that there is a general shortage of shallow-draught patrol vessels, then the situation is even worse than he makes out. Of the 12 Sandown class minesweepers built for the Royal Navy - represented by HMS Blyth and HMS Ramsey - only eight are still in service.

Three of the vessels were decommissioned following the 2003 Strategic Defence Review (another was used as a training ship) and sold to Estonia in September 2006, an episode not dissimilar to the sale of the Army's armoured Mambas to Estonia, only for them to reappear alongside unarmoured British Land Rovers in Afghanistan.

One way or another, British defence policy is looking increasingly surreal.

COMMENT THREAD

Iran+026[i-Iran+026]It was a simple enough mistake to make. After all, it was the BBC in one of its first reports after the Iranian hostage-taking which referred to Commodore Nick Lambert as the captain of HMS Cornwall, the frigate on which the abducted boarding team had been based.

We fell in with the BBC – and many others – although we should have known better – the rank of Commodore is far too senior to command a mere frigate. Her captain is in fact Commander Jeremy Woods, who took command on 20th November 2006.

The distinction is, of course, rather important in the drama of the abduction because Commodore Lambert was using the ship as his flag ship, it providing him with a "command platform" from which he controlled the multinational task force in this area, of which he was the commanding officer.

Lambert assumed command on 7 March 2007 of what is known as Coalition Task Force 158 (CTF 158), a coalition force comprising up to 12 units from the US, UK, Australian and Iraqi navies, taking over from US Navy Commodore Jeffrey Harbeson (both pictured above).

USS+Chinook[i-USS+Chinook]Included in this line-up were significant US Navy assets, including USS Howard (DDG 83), USS Chinook (PC 9), USS Whirlwind (PC 11), USCGC Maui (WPB 1307), USCGC Monomoy (WPH 1326), as well as the Australian HMAS Warramunga (FFG 152) – over which Lambert had overall command.

The US patrol craft (PC) are particularly interesting, of which USS Chinook is a typical example (pictured right). It is the ninth of the Cyclone-class patrol coastal boats: length, 170 feet, displacement 331 tons and – all importantly – a draught of 7.5 feet (compared with the Cornwall's 20.7 feet). She has a maximum speed of 35 knots and is armed with two 25mm Mk38 machine guns, two .50 cal machine guns, two Mk19 automatic grenade launchers and six stinger missiles.

Iran+027[i-Iran+027]She also carries a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, launched and recovered from a stern ramp (pictured left) and a complement of eight special forces personnel to man it.

This, as you may imagine, puts an entirely different light on the additional detail that emerged yesterday, when the Scotsman on Sunday reported that the Cornwall's boarding crew "had even more protection nearby; an American military helicopter and patrol boat were within striking distance, ready - and willing - to help…".

Iran+021+overwatch[i-Iran+021+overwatch]Rather than wait until after the event, Lambert, had he so chosen, could have tasked any one of twelve vessels - including the USS Chinook or one of the other patrol boats – to carry out the freighter inspection, instead of despatching Cornwall's boats, from a distance of eight miles. Equally, he could have asked – no, ordered - any one of those vessels, to provide overwatch – and, clearly, the US Navy knows how to do it, as this illustration of one of its own boarding exercises shows, the gunner keeping a "sharp eye out" for the inflatable (centre frame).

Furthermore, it is not as if Lambert can have been unaware of an Iranian threat. Thanks to one of our sharp-eyed readers, we have picked up this report from CNN, dated 19 February this year, recording multiple incursions by Iranian patrol boats into Iraqi waters.

Crucially, they had been filmed operating near the Iraqi offshore oil terminals, Khor Al Abdullah (Amaya) and Mina Al Bakr, which are close to the position recorded for HMS Cornwall on 23 March when its boarding party was abducted by Iranians in very similar patrol boats. This can be seen from the MoD chart, showing the position of the frigate, and another chart which shows the position of the oil terminals (below). One really does wonder why this has not been publicised more, and why no formal protests were made at the time, especially as the incursions had continued.

Iran+018[i-Iran+018]
However, according to the CNN report, the United States at the time did not see the Iranian moves as "aggressive or provocative". Its assessment was that the probes were "part of an Iranian effort to raise its military presence in the gulf". But officials did say that activity had increased. On at least two days, Iranian patrol boats had crossed into Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. The boats remained inside Iraqi waters for several minutes before Iraqi security forces (pictured below) told them to leave.

Iran+016[i-Iran+016]At that time (February) Iraqi security forces had recently taken over the main responsibility for guarding the terminals, although the task force assets remained nearby, as back-up. But, had Lambert so elected, he could have directed Iraqi naval forces to back up his own forces, or even to carry out the freighter inspection.

With so many forces at his disposal, this rather does beg the question as to why Lambert deployed two highly vulnerable Royal Navy craft, sending them on a mission when he knew the Cornwall could not provide back-up. And, one wonders whether other coalition forces in the areas were even told of the despatch of the boarding party.

Lambert+BBC[i-Lambert+BBC]To be fair to Lambert, though, that morning he had far more important things on his mind. With a BBC television crew on board the Cornwall, he was scheduled to give an interview to the BBC's Ian Pannell for a news backgrounder regarding operations in the North Arabian Gulf. Then, incidentally, Pannell got his job description right, giving him the label "coalition task force commander".

However, with a Royal Navy photographer close at hand to take publicity stills (example right) when his sailors and marines had been despatched to their fateful rendezvous, one wonders whether our Nick had taken his eye off the ball.

Would it be too much to speculate that the presence of LS Turney on the boarding party might have had something to do with the presence of the BBC – even to the point of this being the reason why the team was despatched on what, in hindsight, looks to be such a foolhardy mission?

Could that also explain why, after the event, the BBC downplayed Lambert's role, "demoting" him to captain of HMS Cornwall? After all, we would not want the public to know that, when it came to the Royal Navy boarding party, their journey was not exactly necessary.

COMMENT THREAD

Iran+011[i-Iran+011]I suppose they were going to get around to it eventually, and at last they have. The Sunday Times devotes its "Focus" piece to the issue of "Fifteen sailors snatched and publicly humiliated without a single shot fired," looking at "a shambles Britain could have avoided".

The newspaper refers to this incident in September where a small group of American and Iraqi soldiers had been patrolling near the Iranian border at Balad Ruz, 75 miles east of Baghdad. They had been "bounced" by Iranian soldiers but, fearing capture, the Americans had fought back and escaped unhurt, averting a potential hostage crisis.

By contrast, says the newspaper, the 14 British servicemen and one woman "proved humiliatingly vulnerable to a low-tech Iranian naval manoeuvre that has provoked mocking headlines around the world."

But, it adds, they should have been alerted months ago by the Balad Ruz clash and could even have read subsequent warnings – reported in The Sunday Times as recently as two weeks ago – that Tehran was threatening to kidnap "a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers". The paper continues:

Such is the shambles that senior Royal Navy officers at the fleet's operational headquarters have been directed to review the rules of engagement for naval boarding parties. If necessary they will recommend changes to ensure Britain's forces are never again seized so easily without a shot being fired.

And, while there was no doubting the outrage shared by British ministers, it was equally clear by Thursday's cabinet meeting that Britain's big mistake was to have allowed the sailors to be captured in the first place.

With diplomatic efforts apparently stalling, attention is likely to return this week to how the Royal Navy, pride of Britain for at least 350 years, allowed this disaster to happen in the first place. Have we really sunk so low that we cannot fight off a few Iranian thugs in what amounted to little more than militarised speedboats?

The paper then cites John Pike, "one of America's leading military analysts", who "was similarly baffled that the sailors' home ship, HMS Cornwall, was up to 11 miles away, too far to offer immediate cover as the British inflatables searched an Indian freighter in a routine antismuggling check."

Despite all the evidence that Iran was looking to capture "blue-eyed officers", Pike is cited as saying, "there seems to have been a loss of situational awareness on the part of the folks on Cornwall that their boarding party could be snuck up on like that".

The British lapse was all the more surprising because the same thing happened in June 2004, when eight sailors and marines were seized in the same area and released three days later. The defence ministry compiled a "lessons learnt" paper to ensure that those mistakes were not repeated.

Lynx+mg[i-Lynx+mg]
The Sunday Times says it has learnt that the paper highlighted the need for "top cover" for boarding parties, which should always have been covered from the air by the presence of a helicopter. The Cornwall's Lynx – armed with a .50 machinegun that could have caused serious damage to the Iranian fast boats – had apparently been overhead when the sailors boarded the Indian freighter.

Thus the paper asks, "Why did it turn back, leaving the sailors exposed?" The ministry initially said last week that it needed to refuel before retreating behind an insistence that there was no standard procedure for keeping a helicopter in place.

Conrwall3[i-Conrwall3]It also remained a mystery how the Cornwall's advanced radar and sonar systems failed to alert its crew to a problem. As a type22 frigate, the Cornwall has the capability to track ships up to 200 miles away. One recently retired naval officer said even basic navigation radar should have picked up motorboats at shorter range, assuming someone was looking out for them.

An official board of inquiry will ultimately be charged with examining the incident and establishing, among many other things, why no immediate effort was made to intercept the Iranians as they departed with their captives.

So much for The Sunday Times, but we also get a reference in The Sunday Telegraph which cites Maj Gen Julian Thompson, a former Falklands War commander, expressing fury at how the sailors surrendered to Iranian gunboats without a fight.

He is calling for a review of the Navy's rules of engagement. "In my view this thing is a complete cock-up," he says. "I want to know why the Marines didn't open fire or put up some sort of fight. My fear is that they didn't have the right rules of engagement, which would allow them to do this."

That plus Booker and the penny is beginning to drop, although the papers are well behind the curve. They have a lot of catching up to do.

COMMENT THREAD

Turney[i-Turney]It might have taken a little time, but – a week on - at least The Daily Mail has woken up to the full extent of the humiliation which our proud nation has had to suffer.

Thus, as the Iranians through their Moscow ambassador hint that a show trial is being prepared for our kidnapped service personnel – with the truly ghastly prospect of "punishment" if the "charges" against them are proven - the paper proclaims the stark truth in a robust leader: "This humiliation shames Britain".

The parading of the British hostages on Iranian television is not just humiliating for them but for this country, it says. "Those images will be beamed around the world, with the clear message that we are impotent in the face of this blatant aggression and provocation."

This is a theme picked up by Max Hastings in the Mail's Saturday essay. He rightly reminds us of past glories and the power of gunboat diplomacy and notes that "Blair's true legacy" is a bankrupt foreign policy and the tarnishing of our "glorious Armed Forces".

Along the way, Hastings also notes that there is no credible military option available to us in seeking to release the hostages, thus arguing that we must rely on diplomacy. He then remarks on the tardiness of the EU response (so much for all Blair's wasted wooing of the EU, he writes) and the ineffectiveness of the United Nations, under which mandate the British forces were acting.

Hastings, though, does not offer a way out – a solution to the crisis. He believes that there is nothing specific we can do as we are entirely in the hands of the Iranians. So the great man turns to Gordon Brown, the prime minister soon to be, and asks, "what will he do differently, to rescue this country from the international shambles which Blair will soon bequeath to us?"

Standing aside from Hastings for a moment, those who would advocate an invasion of Iran might do well to remember that it is the major supplier of oil to Japan. A disruption in the flow to that country alone would have a knock-on effect which could plunge the world into recession – a scenario we explored last year (here and here) - while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off Saudi and Kuwaiti (and Iraqi) oil, would most certainly have that effect.

However, to rule out such an ostensibly satisfying option is not to say that, as Hastings suggests, passive diplomacy is our only option. And this is not the only issue where Mad Max goes off the rails. He writes:

When this business is over, hard questions should be asked in Britain. Who was responsible for exposing the sailors within reach of one of the most reckless nations in the world? This was a kidnapping waiting to happen. It has laid bare the bankruptcy of British foreign policy, shackled to America's Iraq calamity. Blair has forfeited respect in the Muslim world, where a decade ago our influence remained substantial. He has lost not only the battle to turn the British people into Euro-enthusiasts, but also his campaign to make this country a major force in Europe.

Here, we see the glimmerings of understanding, only for them to be submerged in left-wing rhetoric and nascent anti-Americanism – never far from the surface where Hastings is concerned.

For sure, we have lost the respect of the Muslim world – and especially Iran – but is it because of "the bankruptcy of British foreign policy, shackled to America's Iraq calamity"? The "kidnapping waiting to happen" was hardly a function of foreign policy. More likely, it was – certainly in the view of this blog - a result of failures of military intelligence, operational planning and execution.

However, if you think about it, the rot did not start in the northern Gulf. As we have been recording meticulously on this blog (in postings far too numerous to list here), Army policy in response to continued attack on British land bases has been supine to the point of being craven.

For years now, Iranian-backed militias have been taking free pot-shots with mortars and rockets at British bases, and the Army response has been to hunker down and do nothing (or very little).

When it got too much to bear in Camp Naji, al Amarah, the Army simply ran away, abandoning the camp, which was stripped bare by the militias in 24 hours. Similarly, we abandoned the British Consulate in the Basra Palace complex, despite a £13 million refit, because of constant mortaring - and we are now planning to retreat to barracks in Basra Air Station.

It seems obvious, therefore, that the Iranians must have taken home the message that you can attack British forces with impunity - they will do nothing about it, other than run away. From there, it is hardly any great feat to link the Iranian aggression against Royal Navy boarding parties and the attitude of the Army.

Should that be anything like a correct analysis – or even partially correct – then the answer is equally obvious. What we need is a variation on the theme adopted by the Metropolitan Police of yore, when one of their own was murdered. Without knowing who was responsible, officers would "turn over" villains, making their lives intolerable and ordinary theivery impossible. Sooner or later – or so the theory went – the criminal fraternity would sue for peace, and deliver up the murderer to justice.

In like manner, we know that there is strong Iranian influence (and presence) in southern Iraq. In that region, therefore, Iranians are accessible – and vulnerable.

There, a robust, aggressive response by the Army, with the help and support of our allies and the Iraqi Army – which is proving to be a force to be reckoned with – all directed against Iranian interests, could soon have Tehran suing for peace. And even if that did not work directly, such action would go a very long way to restoring that precious commodity which we have lost – respect. More than anything else, we must imbue our enemies and friends alike with the knowledge that the British are not to be trifled with.

COMMENT THREAD

Iran+003[i-Iran+003]Left in the humiliating position of having nothing in the locker with which to take on the Iranians after their abduction of our service personnel, our esteemed government has been running, cap in hand, to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution condemning Iran's action.

For all we got for our efforts, though, we need not have bothered. The mighty mouse groaned and heaved and delivered what Reuters called "a watered-down statement" which merely expressed "grave concern" at the detention of the 15 British crew members, calling on Tehran to allow "consular access" to them.

Iran+004[i-Iran+004]Britain had wanted a call for their immediate release but this was apparently blocked by the Russians. Her ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, is reported to have told the Council, during the closed-door consultations, that Moscow would not back Britain's call for UN support.

The original British draft circulated Wednesday would have had the Security Council "deplore the continuing detention by the Government of Iran of 15 UK naval personnel" and back "calls for (their) immediate release". It would note that "the UK personnel were operating in Iraqi waters as part of the Multinational Force-Iraq under a mandate from the Security Council under Resolution 1723 (2006) and at the request of the government of Iraq."

The final UN statement, however, avoided the issue of whether the ambush took place in Iranian or Iraqi waters, leaving the British service personnel hung out to dry.

More and more, this is developing into a "Tipperary situation" - after the old joke in which a tourist in the depths of Ireland asks a local the way to the town, only to be told, "I wouldn't start from here".

Iran+005[i-Iran+005]And, as more details emerge of the snatch, it has emerged that only two boats were initially used by the Iranians. Video footage has been released by Iranian television showing close-ups of one of the vessels, a small speedboat with a crew of three, armed with what appears to be a single 12.7mm machine gun.

This was hardly a formidable force and one which, with the right assets in place and an alert overwatch, could easily have been seen off. Given the enormous repercussions of the kidnapping – to say nothing of the national humiliation – questions as to how the British service personnel were so easily ambushed now become increasingly urgent.

COMMENT THREAD

Mail+Iran[i-Mail+Iran]One need hold no brief for the Foreign Office to feel that the Daily Mail's criticism is a little bit wide of the mark.

For sure, its policy of appeasement has not improved the credibility of Britain but, as the latest Iranian response indicates, our diplomats have been dealt an almost impossible hand, where they hold very few cards.

Clearly, the Iranians are playing games, now suggesting that the promised release of Faye Turney may be delayed because of the UK's "incorrect attitude", demonstrating quite how difficult it is to deal with a government that simply has no conception of what playing by the rules actually means.

But, while seeking the release of our people is vitally important, not for one moment must the government (and especially the MoD) be allowed to gloss over the circumstances which gave rise to their abduction in the first place.

A classic line was taken by The Daily Telegraph with Thomas Harding cosying up to his chums in the military, noting only of the incident that, "caught unawares," the British personnel "had little choice but to surrender." He does not ask, though, why the personnel were caught with their pants down.

Neither was there any hint of criticism of the military from Tory foreign affairs spokesman William Hague who, in yesterday's Commons debate sought merely to "commend our forces for the difficult and dangerous tasks that they are undertaking", then asking whether the MoD would "look again at its configuration of forces in the area, so that the forces undertaking these tasks are fully protected, or better protected, or better able to deter interference with their activities?"

Ann Winterton, however, took a far more robust line, asking foreign secretary Margaret Beckett:

Will the Foreign Secretary have a word with the Secretary of State for Defence to ensure that in future no British forces operate in Iraqi waters - which are known to be extremely dangerous; past incidents proved that -unsupported and without appropriate protection and back-up? Could there not be other incidents in future - we very much hope not - and might this not be a dangerous precedent given that, possibly bearing in mind the current rules of engagement, there is no meaningful deterrent against the Iranians?

Beckett, of course, sought to divert attention from this issue, stating that "there will be a careful review of the courses of action that the government should pursue in future," but then emphasising that "the focus at present is on action on the diplomatic front to recover our personnel" … exactly the line taken by the bulk of the media.

Winterton, however, backed up her plea with a letter published in today's Telegraph, picking up the sloppy reporting by the paper a few days earlier. She wrote:

The report (March 27) that "questions were asked in the House of Commons yesterday about whether rules of engagement prevented the Cornwall from opening fire " is inaccurate. I did not even mention the Cornwall in my question to the minister of state.

The best information available is that the Cornwall was out of visual contact with the two British boats when they were surrounded by several Iranian fast patrol boats with heavier arms. The question is why that was the case, given the risks in the area and UN action the following day to impose sanctions on Iran over its atomic programme, which was likely to cause some reaction. If the Cornwall had been in visual contact, would the Iranians have risked the abduction?

It seems to me that Britain is expecting its service personnel to take on ambitious and dangerous projects without providing adequate protection and back-up.

For once, even The Business is losing its usually deft touch, remarking, entirely reasonably that, "Spineless Britain faces its greatest humiliation since the Suez crisis," but failing to comment on why we ended up in this mess in the first place.

Beckett's "careful review of the courses of action that the government should pursue in future," is not good enough. The military must be held to account and, if there are failings – at whatever level – these must be identified and action taken to ensure there are no repeat failures. It serves no one's interest – least of all the armed forces – for any failings to go uncorrected. There must, therefore, be a proper, public inquiry on how the events of 23 March came to pass.

COMMENT THREAD

Slide1[i-Slide1]
We have now an account of the Iranian abduction of our sailors and marines. According to Vice Admiral Charles Style, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, briefing on the MoD website, the events were as follows:

Our boarding started at 0739 local time and was completed at 0910 with the merchant vessel having been cleared to continue with her business. Communications were lost with the boarding team as the boarding was finishing … at 0910. HMS CORNWALL's Lynx helicopter, which had been covering the initial stages of the boarding, immediately returned to the scene to locate the boarding team.

The helicopter reported that the two seaboats were being escorted by Iranian Islamic Republican Guard Navy vessels towards the Shatt 'Al Arab Waterway and were now inside Iranian territorial waters. Debriefing of the helicopter crew and a conversation with the master of the merchant ship both indicate that the boarding team were ambushed while disembarking from the merchant vessel.

Now, with reference to the chart provided (above), using the measurements supplied by the MoD, the mother ship, HMS Cornwall is about 8.5 nautical miles from the boarding party - to the south east. Why wasn't she between the boarding party and the Iranian border?

Then, her top (flank) speed is 30 knots, but she takes a little time to work up to that so, on that basis, it will take her up to 20 minutes to get to the scene.

Cornwall+044[i-Cornwall+044]But, it would appear, the Cornwall does not immediately set out. All we are told is that, when communications are lost, the helicopter is "immediately" despatched and reports the British boats under escort, already in Iranian waters.

Now, it can only take the Lynx a couple of minutes to get to the scene. And the British boats are already over the border. They have travelled around two nautical miles to get there – faster than the Lynx can get to the scene, even though it left "immediately"?

Then we see the Iranian film. One scene is missing from the BBC rendition , a very short sequence with a "grab" shown above right. This shows a close up of HMS Cornwall. But it is Iranian film.

Let me get this straight ... one presumes the Cornwall is still in Iraqi waters. So, the Iranians, having kidnapped two boat crews from the Cornwall now hang around in Iraqi waters to get a video shot of the frigate? Otherwise, how come the Cornwall got that close to the Iranian boats? And if Iranian boats are in Iraqi waters, how come no protest is made?

Between what we are seeing and what we are being told, there seems to be a few gaps. And what we see simply does not compute.

COMMENT THREAD

Inde+-+Turney[i-Inde+-+Turney]For all their supposed savvy, there is something touchingly naïve in The Independent today, claiming as it does an "exclusive" interview with the female sailor Faye Turney, recorded only hours before she was abducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

In a world where much of the media spreads its wares over the internet, does not the paper realise that we can read the same interview (or extracts from it) on the BBC website, in The Telegraph, in The Scotsman, The Daily Mail, and sundry others? Or does it think that people who read The Independent do not even look at anything else?

That the words and wisdom (and pictures) of Mrs Turney should grace the pages of so many newspapers, however, somehow typifies the state of our nation. As the captivity of the forlorn fifteen stretches into its sixth day, the attention devoted to the one female member of the former boarding party seems to mark yet another stage in the feminisation of our society – as a precursor to its headlong dash into infantilisation.

That Mrs Turney also has a three-year-old daughter, currently looked after at home by her husband also seems to convey a message. This is a society which appears content to send wives and mothers out to war while the men stay at home to look after the children.

Nor indeed do we get much comfort from the father of a naval officer serving in HMS Cornwall in the Gulf. In a letter to The Telegraph he finds it "very interesting to read the comments of those who seem to think that Cornwall should have somehow intervened to prevent the capture of her sailors and Marines by the Iranians." Asks Mr P R Woad of Chichester, West Sussex, "What should she have done? Blow the Iranians out of the water?" Er…. yes. What, in the final analysis, are warships for?

It is rather fitting, therefore, that the most robust comments on this debacle actually come from a woman, the redoubtable Melanie Phillips, writing in The Daily Mail. In its response to these events, she writes, "Britain seems to be in some kind of dreamworld. There is no sense of urgency or crisis, no outpouring of anger. There seems to be virtually no grasp of what is at stake." She then adds:

Some commentators have languidly observed that in another age this would have been regarded as an act of war. What on earth are they talking about? It is an act of war. There can hardly be a more blatant act of aggression than the kidnapping of another country's military personnel.

Melanie is absolutely right. All we are getting of Blair and his sad crew are reports that he has "piled the pressure on Iran" and is now demanding "the immediate release" of our personnel.

Or what, Tony?

It takes Victor Davis Hansen of the National Review to remind us that EU is Iran's largest trading partner and "a cessation of commerce would do more than anything to weaken the theocracy."

Why, therefore, are we not seeing demands for action on this front? Why, in fact, are we not seeing demands for action on any front? Why is it that we are led by wimps and have to suffer a media that seems more interested in girlies than action? Is this the same nation that spawned Nelson and of Churchill, or have we too become a nation of wimps?

COMMENT THREAD

Iran+protest[i-Iran+protest]Given very little coverage by the MSM, yesterday a small demonstration was mounted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The demonstrators were calling on Britain to obey a ruling of the European Court of Justice to remove People's Mujahdeen Organisation of Iran from the official EU terror list.

Before this had been framed against the growing crisis of the service personnel abducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the background had been set out by Christopher Booker just over a week ago when he described the eagerness of our government to flout EU law in order to appease the dictatorial regime in Iran.

In March 2001 Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, placed on the list of terrorist organisations, under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the leading Iranian dissident organisation, the People's Muhajedeen of Iran (PMOI), even though the PMOI claims to be opposed to terrorism in any way and wishes only to carry on its campaign for freedom and democracy in Iran in a peaceful fashion. Mr Straw last year admitted to the BBC that he had done this at the behest of the Teheran regime.

Later that year, after 9/11, the EU drew up its own list of proscribed organisations and individuals linked to terrorism, and in May 2002, at the UK's behest, the PMOI was added to the list. With its assets thus frozen and its activities drastically circumscribed, the PMOI petitioned the European Court of Justice that the EU Council of Ministers had acted improperly, on a whole range of grounds.

In February 2003 the UK Government became the only EU state to join the case as a third party. Last December, the ECJ found in the PMOI's favour, ruling that it had never been given a fair hearing and that its name should never have been put on the list of terrorist organisations. Nevertheless, in January, again on the UK Government's insistence, the Council of Ministers told the PMOI that, regardless of the court’s ruling, its name would remain on the list.

The deadline for any appeal against the judgement has now passed. In its zeal to appease one of the most ruthless and dangerous regimes in the world, Booker wrote, the British government has thus persuaded its "partner" simply to put up two very large fingers to EU law.

The story has been told in more detail here, with author Joseph Omidvar accusing the EU of being "hell-bent on pursuing the threadbare policy of appeasing Tehran". He then observed that "the mullahs are always ready to exploit all these signs of craven weakness."

straw+iran[i-straw+iran]Despite Jack Straw's attempts as foreign secretary to cosy up to the monster, no more does this apply than to the government and the current situation.

From a strong piece in Hot Air it appears that a British boarding party was involved in a tense stand off against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy in December 2004, when they were surrounded by Guards in armed patrol boats. The impasse was only resolved when the British sailors were lifted by helicopter off the merchant ship they had boarded, where they had taken refuge.

MPs are now asking the government whether there were any other such incidents, as it begins to look like the 15 sailors and marines abducted last week were specifically targeted by the Iranians because of previously weak responses by the British and the evident vulnerability of their patrols.

You would have thought that the British government, more than most, would have understood the perils of appeasement but, it seems, the lessons of Munich, all those years ago, have been forgotten. It was Winston Churchill who observed in this context that, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." But, after years of appeasing the mullahs, it is 15 British servicemen who have ended up feeding the crocodile.

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