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11 June 2003: "Revising the scores II"

One of the things David Aaronovitch concluded in the column I linked to in my previous post is "that - these days - you cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed." One of the things that irked me during the war was the tendency on the part of British media to speak disparagingly about the professionalism of American troops, who were portrayed as rather trigger-happy and uncouth compared to the British, whose skills in urban warfare and controlled application of force had, we were told, been honed to a fine art in Northern Ireland, rivalled only by their sense of decency and fair play. This is nothing particularly new; every time elements of the British armed forces embark on a combat or peacekeeping operation, British journalists rush to employ the phrase "second to none" as many times and in as many ways as possible. Consequently, I will admit to a sense of Schadenfreude at the prospect of the British press (and such officers as were quoted anonymously making similar statements) being made to look like fools as the result of the series of investigations which have been launched into alleged misconduct by members of the British army.

It started with allegations that Lt. Col. Tim "We go to liberate, not to conquer" Collins, commander of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Irish Regiment, had pistol whipped Yousif Naser, a schoolteacher and local Ba'ath party official, fired at the feet of Iraqi civilians, fired at the tyres of a vehicle (allegedly) driven by looters, kicked Iraqi PoWs and ordered a mock execution. While an investigation by the Ministry of Defence seems set to clear Collins, it is remarkable that the Daily Telegraph was awfully keen to report this over two weeks ago, despite the fact that investigation has to date not been concluded. On 31-May-2003, Alexander Chancellor in the Guardian was quick to obfuscate and equivocate; the allegations against Collins originated with an American reservist major who'd reportedly received a dressing-down from Colllins and may thus have been motivated by vindictiveness, besides which, the Americans in general were pretty rancourous at the British over the latters' snootiness. But even if the charges against Collins did prove to be true, surely it would no big deal since, after all, the Americans did much worse things.
That chancellor at no point entertains the possibility that the charges laid at the Americans' door might be as unfounded as those levelled at Collins rather proves Aaronovitch's point.

But then came the case of Fusilier Gary Bartlam, of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Bartlam had dropped off a roll of film to be developed at a photo shop in his home town of Tamworth, in Staffordshire, on 30-May-2003. The developer discovered the film contained images which showed a bound and only partially clothed Iraqi prisoner being suspended from the hoist of a forklift truck driven by a British squaddie, prisoners performing (possibly simulated) anal sex under the eye of British soldiers, and one Iraqi apparently performing oral sex on a British soldier. The staff of the shop informed the police, who arrested Bartlam. Bartlam's entire (eight-man) section is under investigation, and questions have been raised about the vigilance (or rather, lack thereof) of the platoon leader and platoon sergeant.

Two more members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are under investigation for allegedly beating PoWs. An investigation has been launched regarding the deaths of two PoWs while in the custody of the 1st Battalion, the Black Watch. Boasts about the vaunted British expertise in urban warfare were proved rather hollow when Adam Ingram, the British armed forces minister, admitted on 29-May-2003 that the British had used air-dropped and artillery-fired cluster munitions in built-up areas around Basra (at least 66 BL755 aerial bombs and over 2,000 155mm L20 artillery shells)*. Of course, some doubt had been cast on the British army's sense of decency and fair play last April, when Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, delivered a report in which he concluded that members of the army intelligence Force Research Unit and the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch had colluded with Protestant paramilitaries.

It's about time the British media (and officer corps) stopped being catty about the Americans, and started paying a little more attention to their own flaws instead.

* - I'm not too fussed over the use of cluster munitions per se; it's just that after all the blather about how the British were so wonderful at Fighting In Built-Up Areas (FIBUA), the fact that they had to resort to shelling the joint after all is a bittersweet irony.

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