The best of friends?
The British seem to be falling out with the Americans over friendly fire incidents and apportioning the spoils of war, reports Alistair Alexander from London
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Embarking on an illegal invasion has not stopped the British government from taking the moral high ground: A British commando in Umm Qasr
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After two weeks it's increasingly clear that the war in Iraq is nothing like the one that was in the Pentagon's brochure. Not that British Prime Minister Tony Blair will admit it.
"There is no point trying to set a time limit, or to speculate on it. It is not set by time. It is set by the nature of the job," he now claims.
Maybe so. But after his humiliation at the United Nations (UN) and an unprecedented revolt by Labour MPs, it was widely understood that a quick victory followed by a swift transition to a UN-backed Iraqi government was the very least he required to retain any semblance of credibility. Now both of those things look less likely by the day.
The British forces were expecting to be greeted by sweets and flowers as they advanced up the Tigris and Euphrates. Instead they've been greeted by sullen faces and rocket-propelled grenades. Having "secured" the tiny port of Umm Qasr on the first day, it was eventually only declared safe on the ninth day of the invasion.
Embarking on an illegal invasion hasn't stopped the British government taking the moral high ground, however. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon attacked the Iraqi government's TV interviews of American prisoners of war as "disgusting and exploitative". But the accusation rings hollow.
"It's clear that both sides have abused their obligations," says Steve Bradshaw of Human Rights Watch, "It's disturbing that the coalition forces are not taking steps to ensure TV crews do not take close-up pictures of prisoners."
More controversy followed Tony Blair's accusation that two British prisoners had been "executed" by the Iraqis. The families of the two servicemen were furious after it emerged they were killed in combat. The government hastily apologised.
But it's not only the propaganda war where the British government is coming unstuck. Whereas the US government is under fire for deploying a force that was too small, Tony Blair's problem is precisely the opposite. Desperate to be taken seriously by the Americans, he ordered the deployment of around 25,000 army troops -- the maximum force available from the British Army. Those troops can't stay in combat forever and there are not enough forces to replace them. The British Ministry of Defence insists there isn't a problem.
"It's going according to plan as we expected," says a spokesman, somewhat hopefully. "We will deploy people for as long as it takes."
Others aren't quite so sure.
"We sent a scale of force which does not work on the principle of a long war," says Sir Tim Garden, a former assistant chief of defence staff.
So what happens if the war is prolonged? "We run into difficulty," he says, flatly.
So it would seem that not only was the government hoping for a quick war, it was actually depending on one.
At the time of writing, British combat casualties have reached nine. But five of those were due to friendly fire from US forces.
In one incident, soldiers accused an American pilot of being a "cowboy" on a "jolly", when he fired on a British vehicle killing one of the occupants. Publicly, military officials claim friendly fire is unavoidable in modern warfare. But the comments above were released by the British Ministry of Defence -- suggesting considerable official disquiet with the US military.
Also revealing is the fact that the British forces are located in the south- eastern corner of Iraq. By securing this sector British forces will be overseeing the humanitarian relief effort through Iraq's only coastline. No doubt it was hoped this would guarantee TV coverage of British troops handing out food to cheering Iraqi people.
But with British and American forces manifestly failing to control population centres, the Iraqi people have been cut off from food and water by the fighting. What little aid has made it through has been met with chaos.
"The British complain that they try to deliver food and they get fired on," says Alex Renton, a spokesman for international aid agency Oxfam. "A soldier with a gun in one hand and bread in the other is always a dangerous thing."
Worse still is the situation in Basra where an ugly stalemate between British forces on the outside and Iraqi militia inside is leading to a humanitarian disaster. British forces have resorted to shelling the city on the spurious pretext of supporting an uprising.
"We're all watching Basra with horror," says Renton. "It could well be a microcosm of what happens in Baghdad."
But controlling the relief effort is not just about humanitarian media coverage; it gives Blair some much needed leverage as tensions between Britain and the US mount over a post-Saddam administration.
The United States appears determined to run Iraq as a military-corporate enterprise -- new plans suggest 23 ministries all under US control. Some $1.5 billion-worth of contracts are being tendered for Iraq's reconstruction. Predictably, only US corporations have been invited to bid. There was considerable friction between the US and Britain over US plans in Umm Qasr last week. The British military were about to reinstall the long-standing Iraqi port manager only to find the Americans had offered a $4 million contract to a US company to run Umm Qasr.
The British government regards the US reconstruction plan as unworkable. But more importantly for Blair, he desperately needs the UN to run Iraq after the war to salvage some international credibility and to repair relations with France and Germany.
Blair promised to raise this delicate matter at his summit with Bush last week. In the event, however, the issue of the UN's role mysteriously fell off the agenda. By handing over British humanitarian involvement in Iraq to the UN, he hopes, at least, to secure the UN a foot in the post-Saddam door. But the UN looks unlikely to agree to such a limited role that risks legitimising the invasion, leaving Blair once again exposed on the international stage.
With weapons of mass destruction stubbornly conspicuous by their absence and the war looking less like a liberation by the day, Baghdad looms ever more ominously on the horizon. And the prospect doesn't bear thinking about.
According to Sir Tim Garden there are three options: "There is Stalingrad -- that is surround and siege. But you get a major humanitarian disaster with that.
"Or there's Grozny -- which is you flatten it. It may solve your problem in the short term but gives you a large-scale problem about how the region reacts afterwards.
"Or the Belfast system -- which is slow. You progressively secure sectors of the town as you go. It still carries with it a risk of casualties on either side but I don't see there are any other options really."
It is clear that none of these options were ever included in the military strategy. But then an escape route wasn't included either.
