Basra: Profiting from their Destruction, the British are Back. By Felicity Arbuthnot

“When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.” Thucydides (460 BC – 395 BC.)

In December 2007, Major General Graham Binns, Commander of British Forces in Basra, handed illegally occupied Basra Province back to the Iraqis, with Basra city centre “festooned with flags, lights and banners to mark the occasion.”

In fact, the whole nonsense was window dressing. British soldiers had been under siege in their bases between February and September that year and had withdrawn to Basra Airport, on the city’s outskirts, leaving just seven hundred soldiers in Basra, squatting in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. They too slunk out to the airport, under cover of darkness on 3rd September.

At the hand over, Major General Binns said that Basra had been successfully wrested from its enemies and was now being handed back to its friends. However, at the time, a poll of 1,000 Basra residents for BBC’s Newsnight programme showed 85% saying British troops had been a negative effect on the Province for their five year occupation.

Given the litany of claims of murder, torture, abuse, theft, against the British army being handled by lawyers in the UK, for Basra region residents, ”negative” seems a bit of an understatement.

However, Major General Binns, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade when it led the siege of Basra in 2003, is back in Basra with a new hat on. In the revolving door between the US and UK armies and mercenary companies, Binns, who left the army in 2010, joined one such, Aegis Defence Services, who have been employed by the New Governor of Basra, Majid al-Nasrawi.

Amongst other things, states the Major General: “Aegis will be asked to provide help with setting up specialised CCTV detection and checkpoint systems across the city, establishing a “ring of steel” security system to thwart suicide bombers.” Sounds just like old times, more work for more lawyers surely inevitable.

Aegis is to also: “set up an academy to help security forces improve coordination and intelligence-gathering techniques.” Exactly what British forces said they were also doing during their uninvited stay. Indeed a contingency remained, even after the 2007 flight, to “train” Iraqis, leaving finally, in April 2009. Further, the locals who forced the majority British troops’ “hurried departure” are still a considerable force to be reckoned with. More trouble ahead, and what a great excuse to call back the UK’s “boys” if it all goes pear shaped for Aegis, in the vital oil port hub, the engine of the entire country, which is Basra port and the region’s oil.  Read more…..