Thursday, 29 December 2011
Basra
The book I read to research this blog was Target Basra by Mike Rossiter which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Basra was the capital of Mesopotamia around the time of the second world war at that time it was occupied by british troops so as to protect its crude oil. It was occupied again by british troops during & after the second gulf war. A lot of the trouble with iraq can be traced back to the iran-iraq war when more than a million people lost their lives. It was one of the most gruesome wars of this century & indeed iran used their own conscripts to clear minefields. Also they would force their own conscripts to charge in mass at iraq machine gun positions. During this time the west supported saddam as the lesser of 2 evils. When iraq invaded kuwait, iraq was nearly bankrupt & much of it was owed to kuwait. Saddam was under the impression he had one the first gulf war after all he remained in power. He thought his main threat was from dissidents in his own country after all it was a military coup that brought him to power. The majority of Basra is shia & are opposed to saddam. The allied forces top priority in the second gulf war was to take baghad & depose saddam. Basra was their first major success. The shias rebelled & members of saddams forces tried to massacre them. The british who were nearby were forced to take Basra so as to protect the civilians. They were unable to bomb the iraq positions because of the close proximity of the civilians. They allowed the iraq forces to retreat northwards so as to minimize the amount of fighting required. They also liberated Al Qasr which was a nearby port where most were sunni & were loyal to saddam. A lot of the population in Basra weren't very happy with the british being there. They often pulled people in for interrogation & there was a lot of organised crime involving the 3 factions of shias like illegally stealing crude oil & then reselling it. A practise worth $200 million per year.
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