Fisk on the truth of Basra

Robert Fisk: Raw, devastating realities that expose the truth about Basra

28 March 2003

Two British soldiers lie dead on a Basra roadway, a small Iraqi girl - 
victim of an Anglo American air strike - is brought to hospital with her 
intestines spilling out of her stomach, a terribly wounded woman screams in 
agony as doctors try to take off her black dress.

An Iraqi general, surrounded by hundreds of his armed troops, stands in 
central Basra and announces that Iraq's second city remains firmly in Iraqi 
hands. The unedited al-Jazeera videotape - filmed over the past 36 hours 
and newly arrived in Baghdad - is raw, painful, devastating.

It is also proof that Basra - reportedly "captured'' and "secured'' by 
British troops last week - is indeed under the control of Saddam Hussein's 
forces. Despite claims by British officers that some form of uprising has 
broken out in Basra, cars and buses continue to move through the streets 
while Iraqis queue patiently for gas bottles as they are unloaded from a 
government truck.

A remarkable part of the tape shows fireballs blooming over western Basra 
and the explosion of incoming - and presumably British - shells. The short 
sequence of the dead British soldiers - over which Tony Blair voiced such 
horror yesterday - is little different from dozens of similar clips of dead 
Iraqi soldiers shown on British television over the past 12 years, pictures 
which never drew any condemnation from the Prime Minister.

The two Britons, still in uniform, are lying on a roadway, arms and legs 
apart, one of them apparently hit in the head, the other shot in the chest 
and abdomen.

Another sequence from the same tape shows crowds of Basra civilians and 
armed men in civilian clothes, kicking the soldiers' British Army Jeep and 
dancing on top of the vehicle. Other men can be seen kicking the overturned 
Ministry of Defence trailer, which the Jeep was towing when it was 
presumably ambushed.

Also to be observed on the unedited tape - which was driven up to Baghdad 
on the open road from Basra - is a British pilotless drone 
photo-reconnaissance aircraft, its red and blue roundels visible on one 
wing, shot down and lying overturned on a roadway. Marked "ARMY'' in 
capital letters, it carries the code sign ZJ300 on its tail and is attached 
to a large cylindrical pod which probably contains the plane's camera.

Far more terrible than the pictures of dead British soldiers, however, is 
the tape from Basra's largest hospital that shows victims of the 
Anglo-American bombardment being brought to the operating rooms shrieking 
in pain.

A middle-aged man is carried into the hospital in pyjamas, soaked head to 
foot in blood. A little girl of perhaps four is brought into the operating 
room on a trolley, staring at a heap of her own intestines protruding from 
the left side of her stomach. A blue-uniformed doctor pours water over the 
little girl's guts and then gently applies a bandage before beginning 
surgery. A woman in black with what appears to be a stomach wound cries out 
as doctors try to strip her for surgery. In another sequence, a trail of 
blood leads from the impact of an incoming - presumably British - shell. 
Next to the crater is a pair of plastic slippers.

The al-Jazeera tapes, most of which have never been seen, are the first 
vivid proof that Basra remains totally outside British control. Not only is 
one of the city's main roads to Baghdad still open - this is how the three 
main tapes reached the Iraqi capital - but General Khaled Hatem is 
interviewed in a Basra street, surrounded by hundreds of his uniformed and 
armed troops, and telling al-Jazeera's reporter that his men will "never'' 
surrender to Iraq's enemies. Armed Baath Party militiamen can also be seen 
in the streets, where traffic cops are directing lorries and buses near the 
city's Sheraton Hotel.

Mohamed al-Abdullah, al-Jazeera's correspondent in Basra, must be the 
bravest journalist in Iraq right now. In the sequence of three tapes, he 
can be seen conducting interviews with families under fire and calmly 
reporting the incoming British artillery bombardment. One tape shows that 
the Sheraton Hotel on the banks of Shatt al-Arab river has sustained shell 
damage.

On the edge of the river - beside one of the huge statues of Iraq's 1980-88 
war martyrs, each pointing an accusing finger across the waterway towards 
Iran - Basra residents can be seen filling jerry cans from the 
sewage-polluted river.

Five days ago the Iraqi government said 30 civilians had been killed in 
Basra and another 63 wounded. Yesterday, it claimed that more than 4,000 
civilians had been wounded in Iraq since the war began and more than 350 
killed.

But Mr Abdullah's tape shows at least seven more bodies brought to the 
Basra hospital mortuary over the past 36 hours. One, his head still pouring 
blood on to the mortuary floor, was identified as an Arab correspondent for 
a Western news agency.

Other harrowing scenes show the partially decapitated body of a little 
girl, her red scarf still wound round her neck. Another small girl was 
lying on a stretcher with her brain and left ear missing. Another dead 
child had its feet blown away. There was no indication whether American or 
British ordnance had killed these children. The tapes give no indication of 
Iraqi military casualties.

But at a time when the Iraqi authorities will not allow Western reporters 
to visit Basra, this is the nearest to independent evidence we have of 
continued resistance in the city and the failure of the British to capture 
it. For days the Iraqi have been denying optimistic reports from 
"embedded'' reporters - especially on the BBC - who gave the impression 
that Basra was "secured'' or otherwise in effect under British control. 
This the tape conclusively proves to be untrue.

There is also a sequence showing two men, both black, who are claimed by 
Iraqi troops to be US prisoners of war. No questions are asked of the men, 
who are dressed in identical black shirts and jackets. Both appear nervous 
and gaze at the camera crew and Iraqi troops crowded behind them.

Of course, it is still possible that some small-scale opposition to the 
Iraqi regime broke out in the city over the past few days, as British 
officers have claimed. But, seeing the tapes, it is hard to imagine that it 
amounted, if it existed at all, to anything more than a brief gun battle.

The unedited reports therefore provide damaging proof that Anglo-American 
spokesmen have not been telling the truth about the battle for Basra. And 
in the end this is far more devastating to the invading armies than the 
sight of two dead British soldiers or - since Iraqi lives are as sacred as 
British lives - than the pictures of dead Iraqi children.

Brian Ashley