Counter-Insurgency amid Fragmentation: The British in Southern Iraq

Abstract

Counter-insurgency is conventionally framed in terms of support for legitimate government against violent opposition. The case of Iraq since 2003 presents the problem of how counter-insurgency can be rethought when the structures of government are often starkly divided against each other. Iraq has experienced periods in which local and national government, and different government ministries, have competed, including through the use of armed force, each claiming the authority over particular geographical areas or governance sectors. The British approach in southern Iraq has been one of making pragmatic alliances with specific parts of government, but this has also led UK forces into confrontations that do not easily fit into existing doctrines of counter-insurgency.

Key Words:

• Iraq
• Counter-insurgency
• Basra

Notes

¹US Dept. of the Army, Counterinsurgency, Field Manual No. FM 3–24 (Washington DC, Dec. 2006), 1–113; similarly, see the definitions of counter-insurgency and counter-insurgency operations in the UK Ministry of Defence, Army Field Manual, Vol. I, Part 10: Counter Insurgency Operations (Strategic and Operational Guidelines) (March 2007), Annex A, x.

²Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala, Iraq in Fragments (London: Hurst 2006), Chs. 2 and 6.

³Charles Tripp, ‘The United States and State-building in Iraq’, Review of International Studies 30/4 (2004), 545–58.

⁴The national consequences of this localisation of power for the creation of a sectarian-based polity are discussed in Andreas Wimmer, ‘Democracy and Ethno-Religious Conflict in Iraq’, Survival 45/4 (Winter 2003), 111–34.

⁵Maj.-Gen. Jonathan Shaw, press conference of 24 Feb. 2007, at <www.mod.uk/>; Iraqi Strategic Review Board, National Development Strategy, 2005–07 (Baghdad: Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation 2005), 27.

⁶ Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq (6 Sept. 2007), Chs. 8 and 9.

⁷International Crisis Group, ‘Where is Iraq heading? Lessons from Basra’ (25 June 2007), 12; more generally, see also Reidar Visser, ‘Basra crude: the great game of Iraq's “southern oil”’, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (March 2007), 9–11.

⁸Jason Gluck, ‘From gridlock to compromise: how three laws could begin to transform Iraqi politics’, USIP Briefing (March 2008).

⁹Michael Knights and Ed Williams, ‘The calm before the storm: the British experience in southern Iraq’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (Feb. 2007), 32; also, Dan Murphy, ‘Vying for Power, Militias Roil Basra’, Christian Science Monitor, 2 June 2006.

¹⁰The process was traced well through Juan Cole's updates on his Informed Comment website, particularly the entries for 30 April 2007, 29 and 30 July 2007, and 17 Aug. 2007, <www.juancole.com>.

¹¹Marisa Cochrane, ‘The battle for Basra’, Institute for the Study of War, Washington DC (31 May 2008), via <www.understandingwar.org>.

¹²Some of the most useful accounts of these roles have been the memoirs of British officials: Mark Etherington, Revolt on the Tigris: the al-Sadr Uprising and the Governing of Iraq (London: Hurst 2005); Rory Stewart, Occupational Hazards: My Time in Governing Iraq (London: Picador 2006); Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq (London: I.B. Tauris 2008); Andrew Rathmell, ‘Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq’, International Affairs 81/ 5 (2005), 1013–38. More generally, see Glen Rangwala, ‘Deputizing in War: British Policies and Predicaments in Iraq, 2003–07’, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies 1/3 (2007), 293–309.

¹³This point is made by Rathmell, ‘Planning Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Iraq’, 1020. The discussion in this section is informed by the numerous formal and informal interviews conducted by the author with British military personnel from Sept. 2003 to July 2008. It is also significantly shaped by the author's experience in briefing 7 Armoured Brigade and 20 Armoured Brigade prior to their deployments in Iraq.

¹⁴For example, Brig. Nigel Aylwin-Foster, ‘Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations’, Military Review (Nov.–Dec. 2005), 2–15.

¹⁵The account of Majar al-Kabir is based on three sets of interviews with British personnel who had served in Maysan governorate. The interviews took place from Nov. 2004 to Sept. 2005. Also, Record of the Board of Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Deaths of Hamilton-Jewell et al.: Findings of the Board (UK Ministry of Defence, 18 June 2004), 16–17.

¹⁶Interview with UK commanding officer, Nov. 2004; Stewart, Occupational Hazards, 407–9; Colin Freeman, ‘Iraqi lord of the marshes “ordered killing of police chief’”, Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2004.

¹⁷Oliver Poole, ‘Jubilant Iraqi looters strip military base after British forces pull out’, Daily Telegraph, 26 Aug. 2006.

¹⁸A sober and persuasive assessment is Synnott, Bad Days in Basra, Ch. 12.

¹⁹In the period from Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2007, the UK had an average of 5.5 per cent of the entire Coalition force in Iraq, but suffered 4.3 per cent of the fatalities. Data drawn from <http://icasualties.org/oif/DeathsByCountry.aspx>.

²⁰Knights and Williams, ‘The calm before the storm’, 25; George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (London: Faber 2005), 426–7.

²¹Etherington, Revolt on the Tigris, 95–6; L. Paul Bremer with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster 2006), 135, 302.

²²Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq (London: Faber 2008), 180–6.

²³UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, ‘Iraq: the medium term’, policy paper (19 May 2004).

²⁴Oxford Research Institute, National Survey of Iraq (March 2004), 9.

²⁵Knights and Williams, ‘The calm before the storm’, 30.

²⁶Visser, ‘Basra crude’, 11.

²⁷Rt. Hon. Des Browne, Oral testimony to the House of Commons Defence Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee, 11 Jan. 2007, para. 67.