File:Breaking Iraq and Blaming Iran.doc

Breaking Iraq and Blaming Iran

British Black Ops and the Terror Campaign in Basra

by Andrew G. Marshall - 3 July 2008

Excerpts

British Black Ops in Basra

In September of 2005, the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra, under British occupation since the 2003 invasion, was the scene of an extraordinarily controversial incident, which has since exposed the anatomy of the Anglo-American "dirty war" in Iraq, and in fact, the relevance to the wider "War on Terror".

On September 19, 2005, two white men, dressed as Arabs, obviously suspicious to the British-trained Iraqi police, were pulled over in their car as they approached the city center of Basra. As the Independent reported, "the two men had been driving in an unmarked car when they arrived at a checkpoint in the city." What followed was a confrontation between the two men and the Iraqi police, with shots fired and an Iraqi police officer killed and another wounded. The men were then detained by the Iraqi police and taken to the central jail. As it turned out, the two men were members of the British elite SAS Special Forces.

The Great Escape

An astounding part of the story about the two British SAS agents is not simply what they were up to in Basra, but what happened to them after being arrested. Once arrested, they were questioned by Iraqi police, and as a Basra government official stated, "They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and to ask their commander about their mission."

Within hours of the arrests, ten British tanks backed by helicopters stormed the jail where the men were held and destroyed the building, freeing roughly 150 Iraqi prisoners in the process. However, the British government initially stated that the men were released as a result of negotiations. British Defense officials "insisted they had been talking to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of the men, but acknowledged a wall was demolished as British forces tried to "collect" the two prisoners." The Basra Provincial Governor described the incident as "barbaric, savage and irresponsible."

Later, the story was changed again, as the British Army reported that they staged the "rescue" because after the two soldiers were arrested, they were "then handed over to a militia group," and likely as a result of British pressure, "Iraq's interior ministry ordered the police force in Basra to release the soldiers but that order was ignored." Brigadier John Lorimer, who led the operation, said, "that under Iraqi law the soldiers should have been handed over to coalition authorities, but this failed to happen despite repeated requests." It should be noted, however, that the Iraqi law being referred to was written up by the Anglo-American Coalition Provisional Authority upon its initial occupation of the country in 2003.

As John Pilger noted in the New Statesman, "Although reported initially by the Times and the Mail, all mention of the explosives allegedly found in the SAS men's unmarked Cressida vanished from the news. Instead, the story was the danger the men faced if they were handed over to the militia run by the "radical" cleric Moqtada al-Sadr." He further reported on how what was found in the car included, "weapons, explosives and a remote-control detonator."