WILLIAMS: The dawn of democracy in Iraq has given millions a new voice. But it’s still being paid for in blood. And two years after invasion, western armies are yet to establish when they will leave.
Basra’s airport is the main base for 9,000 British troops controlling southern Iraq, including the area where Australian troops have just been deployed.
SERGEANT: You’re talking about up to 6,000, 10,000 people in that particular area... Big gas here, infrastructure here
WILLIAMS: It’s safer than much of the country but insurgents can hide within range of the base in suburbs too cramped to patrol.
SERGEANT: Okay so it is an area that we are concerned with. If we can’t get into there and we do have some baddies in there that we just can’t police properly.
Music
WILLIAMS: When British troops head out then, they take no chances. We’re going out on patrol with British forces on the streets of Basra and while the level of risk is nothing like that in the north, in and around Baghdad there are still dangers, mainly from small improvised bombs left on the roadside. And despite reports things are quiet down here, there’s been at least one of those attacks every day in the past few months.
They say this village is friendly so it’s less dangerous but whenever they can they swap helmets for soft hats as a sign of reassurance.
SQUADRON LEADER MICK SMEATH: Okay guys with a non-aggressive posture, okay one arm on the weapon.
SQUADRON LEADER MICK SMEATH: We’re always looking for anything that’s against coalition forces out here,
but primarily we’re here to give confidence to the locals so we’re, you know, by giving confidence to them hopefully they’ll look after us as well.
WILLIAMS: In this village it appears to be working. Under Saddam, Iraq’s Shi’ite majority was kept from political power and economic opportunity. For them, regime change was welcome.
Ali Hussein, a driver, says he can now feed his four children, that democracy is changing their lives.
ALI HUSSEIN: If you ask everyone about the elections, I think it’s good, very good for us, for Iraqi.
WILLIAMS: In Shia villages like this, the British forces have become the acceptable face of an army that has delivered them a measure of political control. It’s a far cry from Baghdad and the Sunni controlled areas, where US methods have led to far greater chaos and bloodshed.
ALI HUSSEIN: American is very dangerous. Anyone ask him about American, he says they are very dangerous.
WILLIAMS: For Iraqi people?
ALI HUSSEIN: For Iraqi people, for everyone.
WILLIAMS: Why is that, why?
ALI HUSSEIN: I think they are, they are afraid, afraid from the Iraqi people but the British army, those feeling about the Iraqi like the friends, they don’t come by those power and those weapons, no, they respect us.
WILLIAMS: Respect?
ALI HUSSEIN: Respect us, yes.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
WILLIAMS: Our movement around Basra was totally secured by the British Armed Forces; without it we just couldn’t work here.
Music
WILLIAMS: Travelling around Basra with 15 or so British soldiers is one thing, but it’s still too dangerous for us to go out by ourselves and speak to people independently.
So, to get a better idea of what’s really happening on the streets of Basra, we’ve commissioned a local journalist to collect what he could. Armed with a small camera, our reporter revealed lives overshadowed by crime and fear.
FAKHER: The cases of kidnapping and robbery have increased to an indescribable extent --kidnapping children and fleecing people of their money. The abduction of personalities, contractors, businessmen – these are causing confusion and fear for the citizens of Basra.
It’s true we recognise we have gained our religious freedom as Shi’ites but not our freedom to go down the street in safety. The conditions for Iraqis have not changed.
WILLIAMS: To improve that security, British forces are urgently training up local police, but for a few hundred dollars a month, this is a dangerous job. Across the country, insurgents now kill more Iraqi police and troops than foreign forces.
LEWIS: I think it’s probably an attempt to try and undermine their confidence.
In order for us to be able to withdraw they need to be totally confident in their ability to deliver security and I suspect the radical elements that are still working out there have identified that that’s an issue that they can target.
WILLIAMS: Ishan Khizzim, father of five, is one of the new recruits – but why take the risk?
ISHAN KHIZZIM: People have begun to feel the freedom that they lost under the regime. By the will of God they will sense the freedom in the future with the new government and application of the law.
WILLIAMS: What do you tell your children when you go to work though?
ISHAN KHIZZIM: I tell them I hope I will come back safely and every time I go, I miss them and hope to see them again.
WILLIAMS: That resolve will be tested on the streets. Those already here also need training and today that’s a job for Britain’s Sergeant Mark Hill and his men.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: This patrol is hearts and minds, getting to know the locals, getting to reassure them with the Iraqi police with us and to reassure the public that the police within Basra are a worthy cause.
WILLIAMS: The training is clearly needed but many appear keen.
IRAQI POLICEMAN: You’re right, it’s dangerous, but we want to service the people. We’re careful, we have controls – we don’t let any of those terrorists hit us.
WILLIAMS: But they do get hit and leave base cautiously for good reason. Almost every day a police car is blown up by a roadside bomb in Basra. Once a location is chosen, troops first check for bombs, then open a checkpoint for cars.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: We’re looking for vehicle bombs within the city itself, any type of explosives to make bombs, any weapons. Like I said earlier, this is a gun culture. A lot of people have weapons.
WILLIAMS: It’s fairly dangerous though isn’t it, I mean if anybody did have a car bomb, you’d be a prime target wouldn’t you?
SERGEANT MARK HILL: We would, yeah, but as you can see the layout of the VCP we’ve got cut-offs left and right, the police are keeping an eye on that to see anything coming towards us and the cut-offs will give a warning and we’ll take cover.
WILLIAMS: Sergeant Hill has learnt enough Arabic to do his job. It puts people at ease, he says, and helps breaks the ice. But teaching new police old tricks takes time. As we’re filming a vehicle that slipped through the checkpoint is stopped by Sergeant Hill’s men.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: This is a vehicle checkpoint by Iraqi police and the British Army. I’m going to search the car.
IRAQI MAN: We know, we know but the police gave us the order to pass, so why did you stop us? Why did you order us to stop?
WILLIAMS: The men are members of the local government, they resent being stopped while escorting a Shia religious leader but the police translator, Wissam, wants to pass on what many in Basra fear this represents – the rise of religious extremists.
WISSAM: In Basra it’s better than any city in Iraq
but it will be a dangerous situation if the Islamic parties are still here.
Music
WILLIAMS: This is the great fear of both the occupying forces and the interim Iraqi Government, that fundamentalist Shia parties will step into the vacuum and take control.
These Islamic parties are already here.
This is the Basra headquarters of Sciri, one of the Islamic parties that won most of the seats in Iraq’s January elections. It’s a Shia religious party set up by Iraqis in the Islamic Republic of Iran when the two countries were at war in the 1980s.
Its local chairman, Salah Ismail Bader al-Battat is keen to play down any hardline fundamentalist policies to a point.
SALAH ISMAIL BADER AL-BATTAT: We are not dictating a particular method but we believe the people of Iraq respect the values of Islam, are God-fearing, and want Islam to be the source of legislation. But how and when - that is something the Iraqi people ratify themselves.
WILLIAMS: Now Sciri was founded in Iran, many people are suspicious that you are in fact a proxy for Iranian policy and influence in the country.
SALAH ISMAIL BADER AL-BATTAT: Unfortunately this subject has been suggested from more than one place. We are not born of Iran, we are sons of Iraq -- our decisions are Iraqi, our sources are Iraqi and our policies are Iraqi.
Music
WILLIAMS: The west hopes extremist aspirations will be tempered by secular Iraqis and Kurds. But Sciri does receive funds and training from Iran. Its promises of spiritually sanctioned order have wide appeal here in the Shi’ite slums. Many Basrans already see religious extremism and foreign interference as part of their daily lives.
Our local reporter spoke to Adel Ali, a school teacher, who recently lost his 21 year old son when he was killed by a roadside bomb.
ADEL ALI: You know, his relations at work were all good, everyone respected him - he was clean living, but it’s not up to us, it’s up to God.
WILLIAMS: Like most Shia, Adel voted in the elections but he voices a view widely held here, that the violence is being perpetuated by neighbouring countries opposed to democracy taking root in Iraq.
ADEL ALI: All the countries around us are afraid of the success of the Iraqi experience. They do not want it applied to their countries to cause trouble for their people and political regimes.
Music
WILLIAMS: Many believe fighters and funding are coming from countries like Syria, but it’s the influence seeping across this desert frontier with Iran, just 20 kilometres from Basra, that worries them most. Iranians believe they have the right to support their fellow Shia Muslims in Iraq.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: We’re very concerned with the porous nature of the border at the moment.
WILLIAMS: Captain Rob Armstrong leads one of the British units trying to secure the frontier.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: As the seasons dry up and the banks of the canal become firmer, we often see makeshift crossing points being forced across.
WILLIAMS: Coming across that border is not just influence but weapons, among them rocket-propelled grenades.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: There is evidence of weapons coming across. Only a matter of weeks ago we had a find here of some forty RPGs that were new, almost in their wrapper still, a number of Soviet and Chinese variants.
WILLIAMS: Where were they headed for?
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: I suspect they were probably moving into Basra city.
WILLIAMS: Whether it’s officially sanctioned by the Iranian government or freelance arms smuggling, the fear is such weapons are heading into the hands of these men.
This is the Medhi Army, followers of the radical cleric Moqutada al-Sadr, parading in the middle of Basra just a couple of months ago. It has twice fought British and US forces, inflicting casualties nationwide. The Medhi Army is close to Iran and to a group with known Iranian backing, Hezbollah.
LEADER: Under your orders, the parade of the divisions of the Hezbollah of Iraq!
WILLIAMS: The army is in a truce with the coalition forces, but is believed to be re-arming and re-grouping.
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: There’s a religious element here, I mean clearly with the religious influence coming from across Iran to various factions here in Basra and in the south.
Some more radical than others but it is still, I think, still fair to say that it’s the minority.
WILLIAMS: But the Medhi Army’s political wing, the office of Moqutada al-Sadr or OMS, has its roots in the Shia majority and is a steadily growing force.
WILLIAMS: These religious militia that people suspect are backed, I mean are they backed by Iran?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think undoubtedly they are.
WILLIAMS: In terms of funding, arms, training.
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think undoubtedly and inevitably there is influence and help coming from that side.
WILLIAMS: Both cash and weapons?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think inevitably, yes.
WILLIAMS: That’s pretty concerning though isn’t it?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: But I think we’d be very naïve to think that they’re not going to have an interest in what’s going on here.
WILLIAMS: The OMS did take part in Iraq’s January elections, but is now stepping up calls for foreign troops to go home. While we were in Iraq, our local reporter filmed these men preparing to join an anti-US rally of 300,000 people
and OMS spokesman, Sayed Haider Al-Gabiree had this message for our camera.
SAYED HAIDER AL-GABIREE: We believe the presence of the British and American forces in Iraq is a colonising presence that threatens our values, our thoughts, customs and day to day ways within Islamic civilisation. We say to the British and the forces of occupation we have the right to resist.
WILLIAMS: Back on the streets, British troops are patrolling one of Basra’s busiest markets. Any one of these people could be an enemy seeking a close range kill.
BRITISH SOLDIER: There’s always the risk of being snatched at any one point. It’s very tense it’s very hard work.
WILLIAMS: While they welcomed the election, two years after invasion patience is wearing thin.
ANGRY IRAQI MAN: They haven’t come to make anything better. Yes, maybe security, but they didn’t come to give something to Basra – not the streets… no water…
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: The people are a bit peeved, as you saw this morning, where’s the fresh water, where’s the
electricity, who’s going to clean up the streets and I spoke to them and it’s not the British forces or the multi-national forces job to do that.
WILLIAMS: Reconstruction will rely on Iraq’s oil money but at night that oil is instead flowing from the country illegally. When Iraq’s two great rivers join, they create the Al-Shat Arab, and it’s down this waterway on these boats that untold millions are being lost through fuel smuggling.
SOLDIER: The crude oil here is like potatoes to the Irish because there’s so much of it.
To refine it is easy, to then sell it abroad is even easier – Iran, Dubai, they’re making a lot of money on the fuel they’re selling. Because of that, people are reluctant to give it up. Small timers keeping families going, big timers keeping people wealthy.
WILLIAMS: This massive illegal trade accounts for 60% of Basra’s economy. The British are trying to help local police stem the tide but with such sums involved, it’s still a losing battle.
SOLDIER 1: They must have gone straight into the house Perky. SOLDIER 2: Yeah there was one in black and looked like one in grey or white or a lot lighter colour. Does anyone need the interrupter?
WILLIAMS: It’s in this security environment that 450 Australian troops have now deployed, based here at Camp Smitty, an hour’s chopper ride west of Basra, which we visited just a few days before their arrival. It is, on paper, Iraq’s safest province, but a few minutes on the ground show it is not devoid of danger.
SOLDIER AT CAMP SMITTY: On the 27th of March there was a rocket attack on the camp approximately 4 kilometres to the north, the rocket flew over the camp and landed 300 metres on the south east corner. The rocket did not detonate. Therefore, we expect mortar attacks to happen on the camp any time after 1900 hours, between 1900 hours and 2100 hours.
WILLIAMS: It’s not a regular occurrence, but blast shelters are being built just in case. The very deployment of a new force could attract attack and there’s this view from the OMS.
SAYED HAIDER AL-GABIREE: The Australian forces are essentially a part of American policy. This is how we see them. We urge these forces to follow Jesus Christ and act out of love and tolerance and don’t put themselves into the same position that America has done. This is what we wish of the Australian troops.
WILLIAMS: For any forces going into Iraq, the Australian base is the safest place to be. But with local patience wearing thin and extremist parties ready to exploit any unrest, that safety is still far from guaranteed in today’s Iraq.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Camera: Richard Malone
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Basra’s airport is the main base for 9,000 British troops controlling southern Iraq, including the area where Australian troops have just been deployed.
SERGEANT: You’re talking about up to 6,000, 10,000 people in that particular area... Big gas here, infrastructure here
WILLIAMS: It’s safer than much of the country but insurgents can hide within range of the base in suburbs too cramped to patrol.
SERGEANT: Okay so it is an area that we are concerned with. If we can’t get into there and we do have some baddies in there that we just can’t police properly.
Music
WILLIAMS: When British troops head out then, they take no chances. We’re going out on patrol with British forces on the streets of Basra and while the level of risk is nothing like that in the north, in and around Baghdad there are still dangers, mainly from small improvised bombs left on the roadside. And despite reports things are quiet down here, there’s been at least one of those attacks every day in the past few months.
They say this village is friendly so it’s less dangerous but whenever they can they swap helmets for soft hats as a sign of reassurance.
SQUADRON LEADER MICK SMEATH: Okay guys with a non-aggressive posture, okay one arm on the weapon.
SQUADRON LEADER MICK SMEATH: We’re always looking for anything that’s against coalition forces out here,
but primarily we’re here to give confidence to the locals so we’re, you know, by giving confidence to them hopefully they’ll look after us as well.
WILLIAMS: In this village it appears to be working. Under Saddam, Iraq’s Shi’ite majority was kept from political power and economic opportunity. For them, regime change was welcome.
Ali Hussein, a driver, says he can now feed his four children, that democracy is changing their lives.
ALI HUSSEIN: If you ask everyone about the elections, I think it’s good, very good for us, for Iraqi.
WILLIAMS: In Shia villages like this, the British forces have become the acceptable face of an army that has delivered them a measure of political control. It’s a far cry from Baghdad and the Sunni controlled areas, where US methods have led to far greater chaos and bloodshed.
ALI HUSSEIN: American is very dangerous. Anyone ask him about American, he says they are very dangerous.
WILLIAMS: For Iraqi people?
ALI HUSSEIN: For Iraqi people, for everyone.
WILLIAMS: Why is that, why?
ALI HUSSEIN: I think they are, they are afraid, afraid from the Iraqi people but the British army, those feeling about the Iraqi like the friends, they don’t come by those power and those weapons, no, they respect us.
WILLIAMS: Respect?
ALI HUSSEIN: Respect us, yes.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
WILLIAMS: Our movement around Basra was totally secured by the British Armed Forces; without it we just couldn’t work here.
Music
WILLIAMS: Travelling around Basra with 15 or so British soldiers is one thing, but it’s still too dangerous for us to go out by ourselves and speak to people independently.
So, to get a better idea of what’s really happening on the streets of Basra, we’ve commissioned a local journalist to collect what he could. Armed with a small camera, our reporter revealed lives overshadowed by crime and fear.
FAKHER: The cases of kidnapping and robbery have increased to an indescribable extent --kidnapping children and fleecing people of their money. The abduction of personalities, contractors, businessmen – these are causing confusion and fear for the citizens of Basra.
It’s true we recognise we have gained our religious freedom as Shi’ites but not our freedom to go down the street in safety. The conditions for Iraqis have not changed.
WILLIAMS: To improve that security, British forces are urgently training up local police, but for a few hundred dollars a month, this is a dangerous job. Across the country, insurgents now kill more Iraqi police and troops than foreign forces.
LEWIS: I think it’s probably an attempt to try and undermine their confidence.
In order for us to be able to withdraw they need to be totally confident in their ability to deliver security and I suspect the radical elements that are still working out there have identified that that’s an issue that they can target.
WILLIAMS: Ishan Khizzim, father of five, is one of the new recruits – but why take the risk?
ISHAN KHIZZIM: People have begun to feel the freedom that they lost under the regime. By the will of God they will sense the freedom in the future with the new government and application of the law.
WILLIAMS: What do you tell your children when you go to work though?
ISHAN KHIZZIM: I tell them I hope I will come back safely and every time I go, I miss them and hope to see them again.
WILLIAMS: That resolve will be tested on the streets. Those already here also need training and today that’s a job for Britain’s Sergeant Mark Hill and his men.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: This patrol is hearts and minds, getting to know the locals, getting to reassure them with the Iraqi police with us and to reassure the public that the police within Basra are a worthy cause.
WILLIAMS: The training is clearly needed but many appear keen.
IRAQI POLICEMAN: You’re right, it’s dangerous, but we want to service the people. We’re careful, we have controls – we don’t let any of those terrorists hit us.
WILLIAMS: But they do get hit and leave base cautiously for good reason. Almost every day a police car is blown up by a roadside bomb in Basra. Once a location is chosen, troops first check for bombs, then open a checkpoint for cars.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: We’re looking for vehicle bombs within the city itself, any type of explosives to make bombs, any weapons. Like I said earlier, this is a gun culture. A lot of people have weapons.
WILLIAMS: It’s fairly dangerous though isn’t it, I mean if anybody did have a car bomb, you’d be a prime target wouldn’t you?
SERGEANT MARK HILL: We would, yeah, but as you can see the layout of the VCP we’ve got cut-offs left and right, the police are keeping an eye on that to see anything coming towards us and the cut-offs will give a warning and we’ll take cover.
WILLIAMS: Sergeant Hill has learnt enough Arabic to do his job. It puts people at ease, he says, and helps breaks the ice. But teaching new police old tricks takes time. As we’re filming a vehicle that slipped through the checkpoint is stopped by Sergeant Hill’s men.
SERGEANT MARK HILL: This is a vehicle checkpoint by Iraqi police and the British Army. I’m going to search the car.
IRAQI MAN: We know, we know but the police gave us the order to pass, so why did you stop us? Why did you order us to stop?
WILLIAMS: The men are members of the local government, they resent being stopped while escorting a Shia religious leader but the police translator, Wissam, wants to pass on what many in Basra fear this represents – the rise of religious extremists.
WISSAM: In Basra it’s better than any city in Iraq
but it will be a dangerous situation if the Islamic parties are still here.
Music
WILLIAMS: This is the great fear of both the occupying forces and the interim Iraqi Government, that fundamentalist Shia parties will step into the vacuum and take control.
These Islamic parties are already here.
This is the Basra headquarters of Sciri, one of the Islamic parties that won most of the seats in Iraq’s January elections. It’s a Shia religious party set up by Iraqis in the Islamic Republic of Iran when the two countries were at war in the 1980s.
Its local chairman, Salah Ismail Bader al-Battat is keen to play down any hardline fundamentalist policies to a point.
SALAH ISMAIL BADER AL-BATTAT: We are not dictating a particular method but we believe the people of Iraq respect the values of Islam, are God-fearing, and want Islam to be the source of legislation. But how and when - that is something the Iraqi people ratify themselves.
WILLIAMS: Now Sciri was founded in Iran, many people are suspicious that you are in fact a proxy for Iranian policy and influence in the country.
SALAH ISMAIL BADER AL-BATTAT: Unfortunately this subject has been suggested from more than one place. We are not born of Iran, we are sons of Iraq -- our decisions are Iraqi, our sources are Iraqi and our policies are Iraqi.
Music
WILLIAMS: The west hopes extremist aspirations will be tempered by secular Iraqis and Kurds. But Sciri does receive funds and training from Iran. Its promises of spiritually sanctioned order have wide appeal here in the Shi’ite slums. Many Basrans already see religious extremism and foreign interference as part of their daily lives.
Our local reporter spoke to Adel Ali, a school teacher, who recently lost his 21 year old son when he was killed by a roadside bomb.
ADEL ALI: You know, his relations at work were all good, everyone respected him - he was clean living, but it’s not up to us, it’s up to God.
WILLIAMS: Like most Shia, Adel voted in the elections but he voices a view widely held here, that the violence is being perpetuated by neighbouring countries opposed to democracy taking root in Iraq.
ADEL ALI: All the countries around us are afraid of the success of the Iraqi experience. They do not want it applied to their countries to cause trouble for their people and political regimes.
Music
WILLIAMS: Many believe fighters and funding are coming from countries like Syria, but it’s the influence seeping across this desert frontier with Iran, just 20 kilometres from Basra, that worries them most. Iranians believe they have the right to support their fellow Shia Muslims in Iraq.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: We’re very concerned with the porous nature of the border at the moment.
WILLIAMS: Captain Rob Armstrong leads one of the British units trying to secure the frontier.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: As the seasons dry up and the banks of the canal become firmer, we often see makeshift crossing points being forced across.
WILLIAMS: Coming across that border is not just influence but weapons, among them rocket-propelled grenades.
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: There is evidence of weapons coming across. Only a matter of weeks ago we had a find here of some forty RPGs that were new, almost in their wrapper still, a number of Soviet and Chinese variants.
WILLIAMS: Where were they headed for?
CAPTAIN ROB ARMSTRONG: I suspect they were probably moving into Basra city.
WILLIAMS: Whether it’s officially sanctioned by the Iranian government or freelance arms smuggling, the fear is such weapons are heading into the hands of these men.
This is the Medhi Army, followers of the radical cleric Moqutada al-Sadr, parading in the middle of Basra just a couple of months ago. It has twice fought British and US forces, inflicting casualties nationwide. The Medhi Army is close to Iran and to a group with known Iranian backing, Hezbollah.
LEADER: Under your orders, the parade of the divisions of the Hezbollah of Iraq!
WILLIAMS: The army is in a truce with the coalition forces, but is believed to be re-arming and re-grouping.
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: There’s a religious element here, I mean clearly with the religious influence coming from across Iran to various factions here in Basra and in the south.
Some more radical than others but it is still, I think, still fair to say that it’s the minority.
WILLIAMS: But the Medhi Army’s political wing, the office of Moqutada al-Sadr or OMS, has its roots in the Shia majority and is a steadily growing force.
WILLIAMS: These religious militia that people suspect are backed, I mean are they backed by Iran?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think undoubtedly they are.
WILLIAMS: In terms of funding, arms, training.
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think undoubtedly and inevitably there is influence and help coming from that side.
WILLIAMS: Both cash and weapons?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: I think inevitably, yes.
WILLIAMS: That’s pretty concerning though isn’t it?
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: But I think we’d be very naïve to think that they’re not going to have an interest in what’s going on here.
WILLIAMS: The OMS did take part in Iraq’s January elections, but is now stepping up calls for foreign troops to go home. While we were in Iraq, our local reporter filmed these men preparing to join an anti-US rally of 300,000 people
and OMS spokesman, Sayed Haider Al-Gabiree had this message for our camera.
SAYED HAIDER AL-GABIREE: We believe the presence of the British and American forces in Iraq is a colonising presence that threatens our values, our thoughts, customs and day to day ways within Islamic civilisation. We say to the British and the forces of occupation we have the right to resist.
WILLIAMS: Back on the streets, British troops are patrolling one of Basra’s busiest markets. Any one of these people could be an enemy seeking a close range kill.
BRITISH SOLDIER: There’s always the risk of being snatched at any one point. It’s very tense it’s very hard work.
WILLIAMS: While they welcomed the election, two years after invasion patience is wearing thin.
ANGRY IRAQI MAN: They haven’t come to make anything better. Yes, maybe security, but they didn’t come to give something to Basra – not the streets… no water…
LT-COLONEL PHIL LEWIS: The people are a bit peeved, as you saw this morning, where’s the fresh water, where’s the
electricity, who’s going to clean up the streets and I spoke to them and it’s not the British forces or the multi-national forces job to do that.
WILLIAMS: Reconstruction will rely on Iraq’s oil money but at night that oil is instead flowing from the country illegally. When Iraq’s two great rivers join, they create the Al-Shat Arab, and it’s down this waterway on these boats that untold millions are being lost through fuel smuggling.
SOLDIER: The crude oil here is like potatoes to the Irish because there’s so much of it.
To refine it is easy, to then sell it abroad is even easier – Iran, Dubai, they’re making a lot of money on the fuel they’re selling. Because of that, people are reluctant to give it up. Small timers keeping families going, big timers keeping people wealthy.
WILLIAMS: This massive illegal trade accounts for 60% of Basra’s economy. The British are trying to help local police stem the tide but with such sums involved, it’s still a losing battle.
SOLDIER 1: They must have gone straight into the house Perky. SOLDIER 2: Yeah there was one in black and looked like one in grey or white or a lot lighter colour. Does anyone need the interrupter?
WILLIAMS: It’s in this security environment that 450 Australian troops have now deployed, based here at Camp Smitty, an hour’s chopper ride west of Basra, which we visited just a few days before their arrival. It is, on paper, Iraq’s safest province, but a few minutes on the ground show it is not devoid of danger.
SOLDIER AT CAMP SMITTY: On the 27th of March there was a rocket attack on the camp approximately 4 kilometres to the north, the rocket flew over the camp and landed 300 metres on the south east corner. The rocket did not detonate. Therefore, we expect mortar attacks to happen on the camp any time after 1900 hours, between 1900 hours and 2100 hours.
WILLIAMS: It’s not a regular occurrence, but blast shelters are being built just in case. The very deployment of a new force could attract attack and there’s this view from the OMS.
SAYED HAIDER AL-GABIREE: The Australian forces are essentially a part of American policy. This is how we see them. We urge these forces to follow Jesus Christ and act out of love and tolerance and don’t put themselves into the same position that America has done. This is what we wish of the Australian troops.
WILLIAMS: For any forces going into Iraq, the Australian base is the safest place to be. But with local patience wearing thin and extremist parties ready to exploit any unrest, that safety is still far from guaranteed in today’s Iraq.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Camera: Richard Malone
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen