Op Telic - Headquarters Squadron
Unlike the last Gulf War where the Saudis had allowed PW facilities to be built on their soil prior to the conflict, the Kuwaitis refused to have a single Iraqi enter their country. Thus all material had to sourced, gathered into the concentration area and then arranged onto pallets and trucks according to the desired order of arrival at the site.
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Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Warfare Training |
Operational Analysis predicted that within the Division's area of operations, we could expect 14,000 PW. This was based on the assumption that 50% would be killed or desert and that the remainder would surrender. Therefore the Regimental Echelon was required to source 14,000 man's worth of food, water, tent-age, lighting, sanitation, medical facilities, blankets and building materials ranging from shower facilities to military dog compounds, whilst the rest of the Division was properly focused on the receipt of personnel, vehicles and ammunition. Gaining support across the Division for PW stores was a hard fought battle against the competing demands of the Fighting Echelon and required utterly and sometimes ruthless determination by the Quartermasters.
From the onset it was obvious that we required a large number of troops to complete this task. General Brims, the General Officer Commanding the Division, was faced with the difficult choice of deciding which of his combat assets he could afford to take off the front line to give to this mundane but vital task. In the end an enlarged air defence battery from 12 Regiment Royal Artillery, comprising 270 men, was taken from theatre troops to provide the escort force and 1st Battalion The Duke of Wellington's Regiment were flown in from Germany to meet the internal and external security requirement at the very last minute and without most of their equipment. A large number of specialist troops had also been attached; medical, engineer, dogs, Military Police Service, 69 Ghurkha Engineer Squadron, a processing unit to register the PW, environmental health specialists and a team of lawyers to interpret the Geneva Conventions. The Prisoner of War Handling Organisation, as we became known, totalled nearly 1,200 soldiers and required a convoy of 270 vehicles to move the men and the material to location. And no sooner had they all been brought together, the war started with the first Iraqi missile landing at the front gate of our camp narrowly missing a startled QDG quartermaster, Captain Baker. It transpired the missile was a SEERSUCKER shore to ship missile that flew in under the coverage of the PATRIOT anti-missile systems.
From the onset it had been planned to deploy forward into Iraq as early as possible and under the skirts of the US forces, so to quickly relieve combat troops from the burden of PW. The proposed location for the collection point was a disused television antennae site to the north of Umm Qasr, Iraq's principal port, some ten kilometres across the Kuwaiti Border.
An American Marine unit was tasked with clearing the town, which took 5 days of heavy fighting to complete. They used a stand off approach utilising air and artillery to neutralise the area before committing ground troops. Nonetheless the PW recce party deployed into Iraq less than 12 hrs after the start of the ground war, skirting around heavy contact, weaving it way through the town and navigating through unmarked minefields and areas littered with Coalition Force cluster bombs. A highlight of this phase of the war was the section attack led by the Operations Officer, Captain Hurley and his crew, including one of the orderly room clerks. Many rounds later and 2 more Iraqi soldiers were added to the inmates. To cap this action the Second in Command, Major Pitman, was dispatched to facilitate the movement of the convoy through the town and wound up directing the fire of an American USMC company attack to speed matters along. But all this pales into the mundane by the surreal experience of the Adjutant, Captain Roberts and Cpl Rees. They had waited all day for clearance from the Americans to move through the border. Finally ordered by a frustrated Commanding Officer to 'get on with it', he faced down the resolute US Sergeant blocking the border. Progress was made but soon halted by a series of Iraqi obstacles and a vicious firefight that developed around them. The only way out of the firefight was for the Adjutant to task Cpl Rees to unload one of the bulldozers and remove the obstacles. And here the surreal scene unfolded when a Royal Logistics Officer demanded to see Cpl Rees' licence to drive a bulldozer, as tracer bullets arced overhead. The reply, understandably, was short and to the point and Cpl Rees completed his task in quick time.
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POW's |
Having originally planned not to accept prisoners for the first 48 hrs it became clear that we would have to accept responsibility for the 500 Iraqi soldiers captured in town. Little provision had been made for them elsewhere and many were seriously injured. CASEVAC was called to fly them to the role 3 hospital ships HMS ARUS and USS COMFORT. The remainder were placed in a hastily erected cage whilst the inload of stores and men continued. Within 48 hrs, the first six 500 men compounds were built, the echelon established, security cordons deployed and the facility open for business. Then using a fleet of 25 civilian coaches, escorted by soldiers from the Battery, the collection of POW's from the Brigades began. The Brigade cages at this stage were full to capacity and it took two days to collect the backlog. In total the Regiment held 500 POW's in the facility, considerably less than predicted but still a handful to guard, feed and administer. As a rule the PW were compliant, but there were still a number of escape attempts that were vigorously pursued and invariably caught by the War Dog section and the quick reaction force from the Dukes.
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POW's |
An interim report has been received from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which praises the Regiment for its efforts. The few recommendations made by them were implemented immediately, but we will have to wait for almost a year for the full report to be delivered to the Government. The American 800th Military Police Brigade took over responsibility for the camp on the 8th April and collected PW whilst continuing to assemble the Theatre Interment Facility, which was to house up to 24,000 POW's for the duration of the conflict. Of note is that the Facility is now the only detention centre for the country and houses the PW and a motley crew of murderers and the like.
Battle Group Headquarters then moved north to take up residence in 'Chemical Ali's' summer residence, a place that had been comprehensively looted and took B Squadron and 12 AD Regiment complete under command. The remainder of the Regiment returned to us on the 30th April when, as part of the Divisional reorganisation, QDG Group as we became known, was subordinated to 7th Armoured Brigade. Initially our task was to takeover the rear area security across the Division, a task that expanded to include the Western Desert and all the oil infrastructure running from the Kuwaiti border to the North West of Al Basrah and running as far west as Al Nasiriyah.
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Basrah Palace |
Inexorably operations transitioned from security to Peace Support Operations and followed three focuses; force protection, intelligence gathering and humanitarian assistance to the population. Force protection was achieved through domination of the area, both through covert and overt methods. Troops mounted vehicle check points to hinder the movement of arms, observation posts on suspected 'irregular' force locations and routine framework patrols. The majority of the area was benign, with only the occasional snipe at coalition vehicles moving along the supply routes and limited arms movement, so the concentration switched to restarting the Iraqi infrastructure and civic society.
This was and remains no small matter. The applicable law remains in doubt and there is no functioning system of authority. No prisons exits, no courts are open and the leaders of every utility and state controlled business are missing or slow to return to work. The infrastructure needs much work and water de4livery was a daily task to most communities. Across the Division great effort is being made to identify Iraqi nationals to form interim councils. However, in the power vacuum created by the invasion, historic feudal claims to ascendance and the emergence of Islamic law are hindering the identification of any true people's representative. Finally, there remains the ongoing task of clearing away the battlefield debris and unexploded ordnance. It remains to be seen how things will turn out and there are hopeful signs or recovery. But Iraq has a way to go before it can be called a functioning society, let alone one that is at peace with itself.
