The British had actually focused more on protecting and working
with the civillans to get Basra restored to some degree of working
order for the past few years, if you follow the British News
reports. And contary to American strategy and timeplan, the British
had actually planned for an exit within a suitable timeframe all
along.
The pictures that you post only depicts the negative and does not
do those soldiers there justice.
Now to get down to the other aspects of judging the performance of
the British in Basra:
War Fighting Capabilities: A
The Desert Rats had destroyed 19 tanks in a modern tank battle when
the British stormed Basra. Basra was the hardest battle when the
invasion was launched; the US troops got off relatively easy
compared to the Rats.
Policing Capabilities: B
There's only 4500 soldiers in a city of 2 million. Do you expect
castles to be built in a day? And they got take care of suicide
bombers too. Give the soldiers their due credit.
Capturing Basra Civillans Hearts: C
While initially welcomed, relations soured after a number of
incidents, one of which had a soldier court martialled. A BBC poll
revealed that 85% thought that their safety had actually detoriated
compared to before. 66% were positive that things will improve now
that the British had left but 10% would had preferred that the
British leaves some presence behind as a safety precaution.
Handling of British Civillans Reactions: C
The British civillan population actually disagreed over Blair's
decision to send troops to Iraq. They cited past British policies
of Defensive and Protective wars and said that the Blair Government
did not abide by that. Some, I would believe were also unhappy that
the former Imperial Power could only play second fiddle to the
US.
Political fallout: C
To the West and East, not much affects them. To the volatile Middle
East and Terrorists, this could be a political victory of sorts for
them, as they can churn out propanganda about their victory over
"infidels"... (although these details were known to public in the
news long ago...)
