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UK Soldiers May Refuse
To Serve Over Legal Threat
Officers Say Troops Will Be Scared To
Act & Morale Will Suffer

By Audrey Gillan and Ed Vulliamy
The Guardian - UK
7-21-5
 
British soldiers will refuse to serve in Iraq if they face the threat of being prosecuted for war crimes, serving and former service personnel warned last night. A number of non-commissioned officers who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity - they are forbidden from talking to the press by Queen's Regulations - said they had been disgusted to learn that more fellow soldiers face prison as a result of their actions in Iraq.
 
One soldier, who served with the Irish Guards in Iraq during the conflict in 2003 and knows the three soldiers charged on Tuesday with war crimes, said: "It's going to put all the other lads in a horrible position. Everyone is going to be scared to do anything. If they get fired upon, they are going to be scared to fire back.
 
"Morale is going to hit rock bottom. The situation in Iraq is just going to turn into Northern Ireland. People are going to refuse to serve in Iraq or everyone is going to be asking to go on rear party or other duties."
 
The Irish Guards who have been charged are alleged to have punched and kicked a looter before forcing him into the Shatt al-Basra canal, where he drowned.
 
The soldier went on: "Soldiers will be scared to touch anyone. If you run over and crack one of them [an Iraqi] on the back of the legs and put them in plasticuffs and nick them and then the MPs are on your patrol and they go back to camp and then pass it on to SIB [Special Investigation Branch] and then they decide you are too aggressive, what were you supposed to do? You are told by your commander, 'Right lads, you are going out on aggressive patrol,' so you have got to go out and patrol aggressively. Then they put their umbrellas up and deny all knowledge of this and it's the average soldier that gets the shit."
 
One still-serving veteran of the Iraq war called the charges "a bloody disgrace" and said: "It's hardly going to make anyone want to go there any more than they do at the moment." He added that soldiers of lower rank were not officially schooled in the Geneva conventions or laws of war.
 
The soldier, serving in the newly merged Scottish Regiment, was part of the advance guard sent into the battle zone of central Iraq, alongside US troops. A number of his fellow soldiers were killed and others very seriously injured.
 
"It's a while since I was in Iraq," the soldier said. "But even then the feeling was not too high. Folk are usually relieved to be sent somewhere else. It's not a popular place to serve, and it's getting less of one. Certainly if you suddenly find you end up in a court because you're accused ... yes, not by the army, but by politicians".
 
Talking from barracks in Warminster, Wiltshire, the soldier said: "People have got to understand that when you're facing the kind of enemy in Iraq, this isn't an enemy with a uniform. This is suicide bombers and stuff. It could be anybody. You don't know who is who. You don't know who you are supposed to be protecting and who is going to attack you, whether they're in a car, or on the street."
 
Earlier this year four soldiers were convicted in courts martial in Germany of the abuse of Iraqi looters in what became known as the Camp Breadbasket scandal, in which prisoners were forced to strip naked and were photographed simulating sexual positions.
 
Scapegoat claim
 
The four members of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers claimed that they had been scapegoated and that an order had been given that they "work" the looters and force them to run with boxes on their heads. In their defence, the soldiers claimed they had not been briefed on the Geneva convention and had not been told how to treat prisoners.
 
Last night the soldier with the Scottish Regiment said: "We don't really get taught officially what's in the Geneva convention. No one gave me anything to read or anything. Maybe there's a rough idea it exists, you know, about civilians ... yes, prisoners and all that. I think the officers might get more details, study it all. But no one ever told me to. I think most people think that sort of thing is done with proper war, between armies, not terrorism and looting."
 
Another former corporal, who served on the frontline during Operation Telic - the codename for the British operation in Iraq - but has since left the army, said: "It's terrible that it's happening. I don't think Britain should have signed it [the International Criminal Court Act 2001] in the first place. The Americans are exempt from it. This is just putting British soldiers' lives at risk.
 
"I think the fact that these lads are getting prosecuted and it could happen to any other British soldier is wrong. If all this was happening 60 years ago, where would we be now? In the present climate it adds more fuel to the fire for these terrorists in Iraq."
 
Another former soldier, who served in Iraq with the Household Cavalry for six months, said: "You are out there to do the job. If you have got to start thinking about silly things that you might be prosecuted for, you're putting people's lives at risk.
 
"If you have got to think about that at a moment's notice, it is going to be you on the floor and not them. It is going to bring the morale of the British soldier down. That's when you will get people refusing to go out and soldier in Iraq. I would definitely consider not going out and doing it, especially if I thought I was going to be shot.
 
"The people that are sitting behind a desk that are putting these people through the court, they should really put themselves in the shoes of soldiers and see what he goes through in Iraq and other places like that. It's just constant pressure out there, never knowing when your next bit of rest is going to be. You're always worrying whether you are going to be bombed or shot at, you never know what's going to happen."
 
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1532938,00.html
 

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