AFTER stumbling out of the gloomy confines of a yellow Bulldog armoured vehicle into a cool but light-filled Iraqi Sunday morning, I counted them out and then had to keep on counting.
Ranged along the road leading out of the British army base near Basra were two Challenger tanks, six Warrior armoured vehicles with their cannons and machine guns, and yet another Bulldog. All this armour – around £20m worth – just for a hearts-and-m
inds trip to a local school.
The unit I was travelling with was due to hand out goodwill gifts of football kits and plastic satchels, and let teachers know that promised desks would be soon be arriving. Surveying the mighty convoy of vehicles, engines roaring in the still desert air, at that point I was less concerned about the possibility of roadside bombs and small-arms fire as I was about our carbon footprint.
Later that evening, in the relative safety of the Scots Guards Battle Group Officers' Mess, where the off-duty junior officers were sprawled on sofas watching live rugby on Sky, Major Kieran Holling, who led the mission, gave me one of those incredulous and withering looks that military men reserve for uncomprehending civilians. I had asked if it really was necessary to take such a show of firepower to a dusty village of 5,000 people.
"If we hadn't had that support we simply wouldn't have gone," he explained. "If we had gone with less then word would have got around that there were lightly-defended Brits in the village and outside elements might well have come swarming in. We don't want to take that chance."
As we set off that morning, John Lilley, an experienced Scots Guards infantry colour sergeant, originally from Easterhouse in Glasgow, and in charge of close personal protection of the major and a senior army medic, was in no doubt that even a goodwill visit has many dangers. He has seen the pattern of activity many times before. "They (the villagers] will be all smiles for the first half an hour. Then they get bored and might start taking pot-shots," he said. "When the kids disappear, that's when you know it's time to leave."
Winning hearts and minds is still a core duty of the 4,500 British troops corralled inside the 27km circumference of the Contingency Operating Base (COB) on the northern outskirts of Iraq's second-largest city, and what should be, with its oil industry, one of the war-ravaged country's most prosperous regions.
At present, Basra city is off-limits to British forces – Scots Guards and the Edinburgh-based Royal Scots Borderers (1 SCOTS) among them – under last month's agreement in which security was passed to the Iraqi police and army. After the 2003 invasion in which the US-UK led coalition unseated the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, British troops were given the task of subduing and controlling four south-eastern provinces around Basra and the strategically-key Shatt al-Arab waterway.
Early success in engaging with the local community faded as attacks on UK forces gradually increased. The US military, faced with tougher challenges in northern Iraq, were sometimes disparaging about the Brits' failure to keep control in the south.
Handing over Basra, where British forces have sustained their heaviest casualties of the four-year campaign in sometimes vicious fighting, with 174 armed forces personnel dead, is intended to be almost the final piece of the jigsaw. The troops stationed here still have to endure the daily threats of small-arms fire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) placed on the roads they patrol and incoming rockets fired into the base from beyond the perimeter.
A six-month truce with the main militant group in Basra, the Mahdi Army, led by the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is supposed to be in place, but veteran soldiers are under no illusions. As one gunnery sergeant major with experience in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq put it: "There may well be a truce, but they will blow us f****** sky-high if they get the opportunity. They only have to get lucky once; we have to be lucky every time."
As our convoy trundles out of the COB, it takes a sharp turn through Basra's rubbish dump to reach the nearby village of Imam Anas, built around a junction on the main Basra-Baghdad line.
Refuse is piled higher on both sides than the armoured vehicles going through. It's a stinking, sprawling mess that brings home the Third World conditions that afflict parts of Iraq, which should be, given its oil riches, a wealthy country. Women in black burqas, small children in tow, scratch among the rubbish heaps, searching for scraps they can sell on to raise some money. Donkeys wait at the roadside waiting to be loaded up with precious cargo. Covered in wind-blown blue plastic bags, the detritus of the city beyond, pretty it isn't.
As we approach the village itself, the Challengers and the Warriors peel off to take protective positions around the 5,000-strong settlement, guarding the goodwill messengers inside the cordon.
The Bulldogs, their roof-mounted machine guns removed to present what amounts to a friendly face, proceed through trackside rubbish mounds and herds of goats to stop in front of the village primary and secondary schools.
As Lilley and his protection squad dismount and fan out, Major Holling takes off his hard helmet and replaces it with his regimental soft beret. It's a remnant of the original British policy from 2003 of wearing soft hats to convince the Iraqi population of a less aggressive approach. It was abandoned, except for occasions like this, when British troops paid the price for not wearing sufficient protection.
Lilley and his men keep their hard hats and their body armour on at all times – as do we. For the first time, I am grateful for the presence of a gang of Glaswegians carrying guns. The colour sergeant bends to hand out sweets to the predicted groups of smiling children that advance upon him, but he remains alert to danger at all times.
Inside the school, an oasis of cleanliness in the ramshackle village of adobe-brick one-storey homes, Major Holling is explaining to the head teacher, through an Iraqi interpreter, that a start is being made on plans to finance and build two new classrooms. No guarantees can be given as the project depends on US cash. Then the gifts are distributed to the children, stuffed in numbers up to 60 into the bare classrooms. The atmosphere sours slightly when the staff realise there are no presents for them.
Yet the teachers appear to be grateful for the British offers of assistance. In the sunny courtyard, English teacher Adil Jodah explains: "The British come to support the people in this village and we have respect for them. There are no bad people here. The Iraqi government is trying to help, but bad people create trouble for their own ends. They wants things for their own people and no one else. But life is better now. Security here is very good and even relatives in Baghdad say it is getting better."
Presents handed over, the Scots Guards move on to the medical clinic. It was built 18 months ago by the French Red Cross, about a half mile along the rail line, and the medical officer with the British contingent is there to assess its equipment requirements. In a sign that normal life continues outside the bubble of the COB, children wheel around on rickety bikes while taxi-drivers pause while washing down their vehicles. Goats scatter and outside a tiny shop, the storekeeper gapes at the Sunday morning diversion.
Mission over, Holling leads the party back on foot towards the waiting Bulldogs, anxious that the 30-minute visit has started to lengthen. As predicted, the children have started to disappear and black saloon cars full of unsmiling men are starting to cruise slowly past the British entourage. Groups of young males are beginning to gather on street corners. Previous hearts-and-minds missions have been stoned by the same teenagers just moments after the handing over of boxes of gifts.
"The purpose is to engage with the local population," said Holling, as the armoured vehicles turn and head back to base. "Hopefully, by building trust in the local area it creates a more peaceful environment and that, in turn, will improve our own security. It's also good for our troops to come out to the settlements and see the people, especially the children, they are here to help. I am a father of young children myself and going into the villages and the schools puts a human face on the mission. It helps us to remain positive about what we are doing."
Since the hand over, British troops can only enter Basra, five kilometres from the COB, if formally invited by the region's governor. Ten days ago, when fighting broke out between the Soldiers of Heaven group and Basra police during an important religious festival, more than 250 Scots soldiers were put on stand-by to support the Iraqi forces if needed. Gratifyingly for the British commanders, the call never came as the incident in which more than 40 people died, was dealt with by the heavily-armed police and Iraqi army units.
That leaves the British troops to mount security patrols on the giant base, help to train the Iraqi security forces and mount hearts-and-minds forays. If all goes to plan, the British contingent in Iraq should be reduced to 2,500 by the end of April, presaging a complete withdrawal at some stage.
Some officers privately acknowledge keeping up morale can be difficult when a large body of opinion back in the UK believes the 2003 invasion was not justified by the level of threat posed at that time by the Saddam regime. Their hope – so far buoyed by results – is that British withdrawal can be speeded up if Iraqi security forces can be trained to the level that they no longer require outside assistance.
A few miles to the west of Imam Anas is Shaibah, an Iraqi army base where soldiers from 1 SCOT are engaged in what is known as M2T (mentoring, monitoring and training). Last week, a group of recruits – some who served under Saddam and all dressed in differing uniforms and footwear – were being drilled in infantry basics such as weapons handling, patrol skills and vehicle searches.
Watching was Major Yaas, deputy commander of the Iraqi Army's 2 Brigade, who insisted that his units wanted to operate independent of British support. "We had a good army before the war but it was there to serve Saddam's purposes not what was required for the country and its people," he said. "It's different now."
Major Tom Perkins, commander of 1 SCOT's Rhine Company, has witnessed the highs and lows of the last four years in Iraq and, in the remaining days of the British military presence in Iraq, still hopes to make a difference.
"I was here in 2003 as part of the war and when we left people were shaking our hands," he said. "Four and half years later we are back in a different and much more complex situation. Our training role is very positive and shows we are not just here for the sake of it. When we leave Iraq we want to leave it in a better state than we found it."
