A number of people are comparing the scandal now arising from just-published video images of British soldiers beating teenaged Iraqi protesters in Basra in 2004 with the scandal that arose from photos of US personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. UK officials are responding to this crisis in a very different way than US officials responded to the Abu Ghraib photos, however, and it's instructive to look at that difference.
British officials have promptly acknowledged the UK government's responsibility for what its troops do, launched an official investigation, and promised to punish anyone found guilty of wrongdoing. At the same time, government ministers and military spokesmen have gotten out a consistent message that the majority of UK personnel in Iraq conduct themselves responsibly, and reiterated the reasons why they are there. Above all, there is an implicit message that British officials and the British public are horrified by the beatings and feel sympathy for the victims.
By contrast, American officials were slow to acknowledge responsibility for Abu Ghraib. We implicitly belittled the significance of the abuse and disregarded the offense suffered by victims and their families. We've never given anyone a credible assurance that what happened at Abu Ghraib couldn't happen again. And, when President Bush took the exceptional step of speaking to the Iraqi public directly, through interviews with Alhurra and Al Arabiyya TV, he treated the Abu Ghraib scandal as a bigger injustice to the United States than to Iraqis -- a self-pitying argument that could only contribute to many Iraqis' poor opinion of how the US conducts its business.
"Blair Promises Iraq 'Abuse' Probe" - BBC News, 12 Feb 2006
Tony Blair has said claims of abuse by soldiers "will be investigated" after images that appeared to show UK troops beating Iraqi youths were published.
The News of the World has published pictures from a video the newspaper says was shot in southern Iraq in 2004.
Mr Blair said the "overwhelming majority" of troops in Iraq "behave properly" and do a "great job for our country and for the wider world".
The Ministry of Defence has launched an investigation into the video images.
A military spokesman in Iraq condemned "all acts of abuse and brutality" by British troops, saying the allegations related to a "tiny number" of soldiers.
On the tape, described as a "secret home video," an unidentified cameraman is heard laughing and urging his colleagues on. It was apparently filmed for fun by a corporal.
The Ministry of Defence said it was aware of the allegations, which are being investigated by the Royal Military Police....
British military spokesman Flight Lieutenant Chris Thomas, based in Basra, said: "We hope that the good relations that the multi-national forces have worked very hard to develop won't be adversely affected by this material."
He said the newspaper's claims related "to only a tiny number of the 80,000 personnel that have served in Iraq."
Soldiers are shown chasing youths involved in the disturbance, dragging four of them into the compound and beating them on various parts of the body with batons and kicking them, one in the genitals.
The recording is said to show an attack lasting a minute, with 42 blows counted.
The News of the World said a soldier could also be seen kicking a dead Iraqi in the face....
The paper claims it has established the soldiers involved were British, but would not disclose which unit or regiment were allegedly involved....
The Army's chief General Sir Mike Jackson launched an inquiry last year into the issue of whether pre-deployment training was adequate.
Abuse allegations had damaged the Army but a cover-up would be worse, he said....
The News of the World has images from the video posted to its Web site, along with an account of how it obtained the footage:
"Shamed by 42 Brainless Blows," by Robert Kellaway - the News of the World (UK), 12 Feb 2006
Today we expose a rogue squad of British soldiers who savagely attacked a defenceless bunch of Iraqi teenagers —and with 42 brutal blows brought shame on our nation and its proud army.
The horrifying scenes on these pages will shock the world and ignite a huge military scandal.
They were captured on a secret home video — apparently filmed for "fun" by a corporal—and show at least eight of his hulking comrades cruelly:
DRAGGING four weedy rioters—all apparently in their early teens—off the street and behind the high walls of a secluded army compound,
BEATING them senseless with vicious blows from batons, boots and fists,
IGNORING their pitiful pleas for mercy, until the incident climaxes with what appears to be an NCO delivering a sickening full-force kick in the genitals of a cringeing lad pinned to the ground.
All the while the callous cameraman delivers a stomach-churning commentary urging his mates on, cackling with laughter and screaming: "Oh yes! Oh yes! You're gonna get it. Yes, naughty little boys! You little f***ers, you little f***ers. DIE! Ha, ha!"
The video—later shown to the corporal's pals at their home base in Europe—was exposed to the News of the World by a disgusted whistleblower.
He told us the unit and regiment involved but for security reasons we are not publishing the details....
The cowardly beating is believed to have taken place in early 2004 amid a series of street riots in southern Iraq. Troops were involved in running battles with hundreds of screaming demonstrators armed with stones, sticks, shovels and home-made grenades....
The video came to light following the unit's return home. Our source was horrified when he saw it and vowed the tape MUST be made public to force the army to clamp down on the abuse of prisoners—and protect the reputations of more than 80,000 dedicated British troops—including 101 killed and 230 injured—who have served in Iraq since the start of the second Gulf war.
He told us: "I'm sure those Iraqis weren't innocent little boys—I bet they'd all been slinging rocks and maybe even explosives. But that's no excuse for a beating like that.
"The ringleader was supposed to be a senior sergeant. Instead of reeling the lads in and calming them down, he was in the thick of it, urging them on. He even kicked that boy straight in the b***s with two other soldiers twice the lad's size holding him face down.
"That's sick. You could understand some terrified 19-year-old private losing it. But that's what NCOs are for—to lead and set an example."
Last night we handed our dossier of evidence to the Ministry of Defence. A Military Police investigation is now under way.
Also see:
"UK Troops Filmed Abusing Iraqis," by David Cracknell and Michael Smith - the Sunday Times (UK), 12 Feb 2006
...Defence sources say they are 95% sure the footage is genuine, although they are wary because in the past fake pictures of alleged incidents have been distributed to embarrass British troops. [The reference is at least in part to abuse photos published by the Mirror in early 2004 that were later found to be fakes. See "Sorry...We Were Hoaxed" - the Mirror, 15 May 2004.]
If the allegations are proved,the incident may provoke further tensions among Muslims following the recent row over religious cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad.
The alleged abuse shown in the video footage — and reported in today’s News of the World — took place as the situation in Basra was beginning to deteriorate.
British troops were clashing with former Iraqi soldiers protesting over the failure of the interim administration to pay them.
Locals were also angry at shortages of water and electricity and at the increasing rates of crime, particularly at night when gunmen prowled the streets, apparently unhindered by the British troops and newly trained Iraqi police officers....
"How the British Army's Capture of Hearts and Minds Turned Sour," by Peter Beaumont - the Observer (UK), 12 Feb 2006
Amid the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2004 it was a common place among British military officers to tut tut and compare the failings of US military discipline and the American approach with that of British soldiers in the south of Iraq around the city of Basra. You would hear, again and again, how the British Army had more experience of dealing with civilians in difficult situations. Northern Ireland was inevitably mentioned.
There seemed some truth in the British claims.
Their handling of the looting that broke out across Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam's regime seemed more assured. British soldiers in Basra quickly set up checkpoints and appeared to deal firmly with those stealing food needed for the city while their American counterparts in the north stood by for several days as Baghdad and other major cities were stripped down to the electrical wiring.
Their fire discipline too, especially against civilians seemed more careful. There were fewer incidents of the use of deadly force by jumpy troops against ordinary Iraqis. The British too were better equipped with soldiers with a smattering of Arabic. Above all they moved quickly to wearing berets in an attempt to reassure the population.
But it did not reflect the truth.
For quietly, out of the sight of the media, abuses were taking place. In the last 18 months exactly how serious that abuse was has gradually been revealed by a series of accounts and prosecutions and photographs that have leaked into the public domain, of which the images of the beatings of a group of Iraqi teenagers have been the latest.
In truth too, the 'success story' in Basra has always been something of a myth. For while Basra and the south have been less violent than the Sunni Triangle and Baghdad in the north, Basra, almost from the beginning, has been a violent city where assassinations have been commonplace, and where British troops have patrolled in an often tense relationship with the Shia militias that have increasingly tightened their grip.
Where once it was common to see more relaxed British soldiers patrolling the rubbish strewn streets in soft berets, in the last year or so British troops, who have become the target for shootings and roadside bombings, have returned to wearing kevlar helmets.
As these groups have become more confident, friction with British soldiers has increased - a state of affairs that the new photographs will exacerbate leading to increased resentment and the threat of further violence against British soldiers.
For those intent on encouraging violence the pictures will be used as just further evidence of British abuses, following a spate of previous allegations....
A steady trickle of allegations has emerged, each one given more credence to the notion of a more widespread problem of command and discipline in Iraq than has so far been acknowledged. These will inevitably lead to soul searching among senior officers over failings in British military culture. Although the latest abuse allegations will be damaging, it has to be acknowledged that the great majority of British soldiers carry out their duties with unfailing determination under the most trying circumstances.
But at the centre of a flawed military culture is a failure to inculcate basic military law into a minority of British troops, as well as evidence of a desire for violent and abusive trophy photographs by that same minority. It is this, perhaps, that has been one of the most disturbing phenomena of the abuse scandalsthat have emerged out of the war in Iraq. What is particularly disturbing the level of dehumanisation of the Iraqi people that British and American troops were sent to liberate.
There are soldierly 'excuses' that one has heard repeated privately by British and US troops in Iraq in order to explain some of these abuses. I have heard officers excuse the bad behaviour of their men after the death of a popular officer or NCO. I have heard soldiers too - in one case after being hit by several roadside bombs in as many days - explain their desire to kill someone, anyone, to relieve their anger and frustration.
But that is the point of military discipline: to recognise the danger points and to ensure that in a service that requires and inculcates a culture of violence, that violence is controlled and not turned in upon itself as a culture of perverse and unpleasant self-gratification.
If it is not, then one can only conclude that the failures of control are not limited to those men who have been pictured in the media but to the chain of command that has failed in its duty....
For background on a somewhat similar case, see UK Investigates "Trophy Video" of Contractors Shooting Iraqi Civilian Traffic.
Added 13 Feb 2006:
"One Arrested Over UK Video of Iraq Soldier Abuse" - Reuters (London), 13 Feb 2006
One person has been arrested after the release of a video apparently showing British soldiers savagely beating Iraqi teenagers in 2004, the Ministry of Defense said on Monday.
A spokesman said the arrest was on Sunday night but declined to give further details....
"Man Held Over Iraq Civilian Abuse Photo" - the Independent (UK), 13 Feb 2006
Royal Military Police have arrested a man in connection with video footage of British troops allegedly abusing Iraqi civilians, the Ministry of Defence confirmed.
He was detained at 8.18pm last night but officials refused to say where or confirm if he was a serving soldier.
An MoD spokesman said: "The RMP investigation into these extremely serious allegations is at very early stage.
"We can confirm that an arrest has been made in conjunction with this investigation."
The MoD spokesman said: "The arrest took place at 8.18pm on Sunday. It would be inappropriate to comment further."
Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has called for a rapid investigation into the footage.
Dr Bashar Al Naher, a UK-based spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, urged Tony Blair to bring the perpetrators to justice immediately.
Mr Blair promised a thorough investigation into the incident which is being broadcast to outrage across the Middle East today.
Arab satellite television stations, including Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, are replaying the footage alongside images from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal involving American soldiers....
Major Peter Cripps, an Army spokesman in Basra said there had not yet been any recriminations on the streets of the southern Iraqi city, where most of Britain's more than 8,000 troops are based.
But Basra City Council chief Mohammed al-Abadi said local leaders wanted quick action and assurances that Iraqis would not be "humiliated further."
"We condemn and denounce this criminal and brutal act. Iraqis don't deserve such treatment," he said.
Akil al-Bahadily, an official from the Basra office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said: "This is good proof of the violations of human rights being committed by British troops in Basra."
But many Iraqis would consider the actions "normal compared to what happens behind closed doors, which is greater", Basra resident, Muhannad al-Moussaoui, pointed out.
All political parties were united in their condemnation of the scenes shown in the footage.
Added 14 Feb 2006:
"Basra Officials Cut Ties with Brits," by Haider Hani - AP (Amarah, Iraq), 14 Feb 2006
AMARAH, Iraq - Anger over the alleged abuse of Iraqis by British forces prompted Basra Provincial Council to sever relations with the British on Tuesday, while two purported victims demanded compensation from London.
The council governing Basra province, which neighbors Maysan province where the alleged 2004 abuses in the city of Amarah occurred, announced all government authorities suspended ties with the British military and consulate operating in the area.
Basra council also demanded the 530-member Danish contingent withdraw from southern Iraq unless the Danish government apologizes for the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad deemed insulting by Muslims which appeared in Danish and other newspapers.
The outrage over the alleged British abuse and prophet cartoons has damaged relations with U.S.-led coalition forces at a time when foreign governments are either intending or trying to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
"All governmental offices will cut all kinds of relations with the British forces and they will not cooperate with them until further notice," Basra council said in a statement.
Basra council official Nadhim al-Jabiri said the decision includes ending cooperation with the British consulate in Basra.
Basra police chief Maj. Gen. Hassan Suwadi said all Iraqi security forces would stop conducting joint-patrols with the British military in the entire province as a result of the alleged Amarah abuses.
"We condemn the abuse of the British forces and demand the British government to adopt legal procedures as soon as possible to punish its soldiers who carried out the abuse," Suwaid told The Associated Press.
British military spokesman Capt. James St. John-Price said he was aware that Iraqi security forces had reduced the number of joint-patrols with British soldiers by at least half in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city where most of Britain's more than 8,000 troops are based....
Added 19 Feb 2006:
"Iran Official Wants Brits Out of Basra," by Hussein Dakroub - AP (Beirut), 17 Feb 2006
Iran's foreign minister demanded the immediate withdrawal of British forces in Basra, saying Friday they had destabilized the southern Iraqi city near the Iranian border.
Wrapping up a three-day visit to Lebanon, Iranian Foreign Minister Manushehr Mottaki said Iran supported the "current political process in Iraq," but he urged the incoming government to control the "escalating terrorism" targeting Iraqi civilians and to push for an immediate pullout of U.S.-led multinational forces.
"We believe that the presence of the British forces in Basra has destabilized security in this city and has had some negative effects in the form of threats against southern Iran recently," Mottaki said.
Basra is about 22 miles from a southern Iranian province that witnessed riots and bombings last year allegedly connected to Iran's Arab minority. Iran has blamed British intelligence for some of the bombings, a charge which Britain denies.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," Mottaki told reporters after talks with his Lebanese counterpart.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was visiting Germany, told reporters in Berlin: "What I would say to the Iranians is that there is no point in trying to divert attention from the issues to do with Iran by calling into question the British presence in Iraq, which is there with a U.N. mandate and Iraqi support."
Mottaki's allegations seemed to be spurred by the recent publicity given to a video of what appeared to be British soldiers assaulting young Iraqi boys after a street confrontation in January 2004 in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah, about 100 miles north of Basra. The British army has launched an investigation and arrested two individuals.
Mottaki said British forces had behaved in an "inhuman and immoral manner that constituted a flagrant violation of human rights" against young Iraqis....
"British Defence Secretary Defends Troops Amid Iraq Abuse Claims" - AFP (London), 19 Feb 2006
Britain's Defence Secretary John Reid has mounted a robust defence of the country's troops serving in Iraq following the release of video footage apparently showing some beating unarmed civilians.
Critics should be "very slow to condemn" British armed forces because they faced a situation that was "far more difficult than at any time in history because we face an enemy that is completely unconstrained", he said.
"The international terrorist is not constrained by legality, by morality, by any convention, Geneva or otherwise, yet our troops are increasingly constrained not just by international law and convention, the standards we want to keep, but by media scrutiny, by video phone, by mobile phone, by satellite dishes," he told BBC television Sunday.
Reid said increased scrutiny was "not necessarily a bad thing" but stressed that terrorists were prepared to use a variety of methods to "undermine the morale and the will of democracies" to fight to defend their freedoms.
"The terrorist, who would never allow any freedom on television, will use our television to show hostages being demeaned, being degraded and in some cases being executed," he added.
"Why? Because they use our freedom as the tool to terrorise our people...We ought to be very slow to condemn our troops fighting in those circumstances and I think the public agree with that."
The defence secretary, who is due to give a keynote speech in London Monday calling for greater understanding of the realities of modern combat, again condemned the images, which were shot after riots in southern Iraq in 2003.
But he insisted they needed to be viewed in the context that between 80,000 and 100,000 British troops had served in Iraq since the start of the US-led military action to oust former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
During that time, there had been only five "sustainable allegations" of mistreatment against 20 to 30 Iraq civilians, he added.
The problem with Reid's argument, of course, is that the victims in the beating photos weren't international terrorists. They were local kids. And the news media that broadcast those images weren't terrorists, either. They were just media, reporting news. And it's whistling in the dark to think that no one in Basra or in wider Iraqi society knew about those beatings until the News of the World published the video.
Added 20 Feb 2006:
"Video Fallout Hits UK Iraq Troops" - BBC News, 19 Feb 2006
British forces are facing problems in southern Iraq as the fallout continues over footage of soldiers apparently beating Iraqis.
A second regional council has now ended all co-operation with the British Army.
British military police have started interviewing four Iraqi youths about the video, taken during a demonstration in Amara, southern Iraq, two years ago.
In a speech, Defence Secretary John Reid is to call for people to be "slow to condemn our troops".
Mr Reid wants the difficult context of operating in an extremely hostile environment to be taken into account.
But with Maysan council joining its counterpart in Basra in registering a protest over the footage, most of British-controlled Iraq is now not co-operating.
All contacts with UK military and civilian authorities in Maysan have been suspended and the council has demanded the release of all the detainees from the province being held by the coalition.
The council in Basra, which has already frozen ties, has now warned its employees they will be fired if they have any involvement with the British forces.
Both councils are also demanding an immediate handover of powers from the British.
Military officials are hoping a speedy and thorough investigation into the events at Amara will help defuse tensions.
Officers have spoken to four alleged victims and visited the area where it is claimed the incident took place....
Added 26 Feb 2006:
"An End to the Soft Sell by the British in Basra," by Jonathan Finer - the Washington Post, 26 Feb 2006 (registration required)
BASRA, Iraq -- In a region long insulated from the rampant unrest in Iraq, relations between British forces and local leaders have deteriorated sharply in recent weeks as violence has escalated in and around this southeastern city, military commanders and residents said.
A series of damaging incidents began in September with an attempt by British troops to forcibly free two of their soldiers from a local prison, and escalated when they arrested 14 Iraqi police officers last month. In late January, a roadside bomb in nearby Umm Qasr killed the 100th British service member to die in the Iraq war. Less than two weeks later, the release of a two-year-old video showing British soldiers battering Iraqi boys sparked several small but angry demonstrations.
As the tension has grown in Basra, so has the murder rate. Since November, the rate has doubled, to an average of more than one per day, according to data provided by the British military. Among the victims this month was an interpreter working with British troops.
Gone are the days when British forces, who came to Basra during the 2003 invasion, won wide praise for their less confrontational approach, patrolling city streets in floppy berets and soft-skinned vehicles -- which they still use, though not as often. As they prepare to transfer more responsibility for security to Iraqi forces, the British acknowledge that their methods have failed to prevent the rise of the militia groups -- many of them linked to mainstream political parties -- that they now consider the region's greatest security threat.
Troops in Iraq's second largest city, which sits on the Shatt al-Arab River, Iraq's gateway to the sea, are fighting a different type of insurgency from that faced by American forces battling Sunni and foreign militants elsewhere in the country. In the Shiite-majority south, British commanders say, the enemy is harder to identify and is often closely associated with the Iraqi security forces that the British are training....
Criticism of the British has grown more caustic from residents who say the British approach made them slow to recognize the militias' growing influence and brutality. The Basra police chief told reporters last May that half of his more-than-12,000-member force belonged to militias and that he trusted only a fourth of his officers.
The British "released us from Saddam and put us under the mercy of merciless people," said Raad Jawad, an engineer with a local oil company....
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