TRY THE DOOR HANDLE FIRST

After a formal request from US Central Command, the team of 14 officers and senior non-commissioned officers visited all the key American divisions in Iraq to expound the British way of winning hearts and minds. The acknowledgment from the Americans that they might have something to learn from the British experience of dealing with internal security operations, like Northern Ireland, is not expected to lead to an immediate change in strategy.

Until now, the Americans, most of whom serve in heavyweight armoured divisions which fought in the conflict, have maintained their warfighting appearance, wearing helmets and flak jackets for protection.

Critics of the American approach to postwar peacekeeping in Iraq have claimed that the perceived hostile attitude of the US troops has antagonised the Iraqi people. They also point out that since the war officially ended on May 1 more than 50 American soldiers have been killed in almost daily attacks by pro-Saddam gunmen, compared with six British troops shot dead in one incident in southern Iraq in June.

The British team, now back from five weeks of instructing American officers in Iraq, tried to outline different options for dealing with the country’s internal security, described as the “non-lethal” approach. One member of the team from the Operational Training and Advisory Group (Optag), attached to the Army’s Land Command, said: “We gave advice about adopting a lower profile in internal security operations, such as trying the handle of a door before putting your boot in. It’s a different way of doing things.”...

During the special “softer-approach” courses, attended by about 550 American military instructors, the British team visited the 1st US Armoured Division in Baghdad, the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment in al- Ramadi, and the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul. Colonel Loudon and his fellow instructors taught how British troops in Ulster and other internal security operations carried out house searches, combining “friendliness with thoroughness”, and also urban and rural patrols, using low-level, not high-profile, tactics.

Credit: The London Times, August 1st 2003.