THE events at Abu Ghraib prison where US troops were pictured mistreating Iraqi prisoners were a public relations disaster of the first magnitude, and almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had amongst the more moderate section of the Iraqi population.

Almost unbelievably, the Abu Ghraib disaster was followed by photographs published in the Daily Mirror of British soldiers apparently behaving in an appalling manner towards an Iraqi prisoner.

The whole of the region is now awash with images of troops appearing to mistreat Iraqi prisoners. It would be fair to say that everyone who ever served in the British Army is hoping and praying that the images of British soldiers mistreating prisoners are fake, put together in an out-of-date Bedford RL lorry, using an obsolete rifle and with someone posing as a soldier wearing the wrong equipment.

We all hope that in the next few days the police will discover some unscrupulous operators with their pockets full of £20 notes and that the Daily Mirror has committed one of the greatest journalistic blunders of all time.

None of this matters on the ground in Iraq — the damage is done. Iraqis will believe that these photographs of British soldiers are real, and if a subsequent investigation proves that they were faked, no Iraqi will believe it. If Tony Blair stands up in Parliament and says that the perpetrators of the fake have been identified and are now in HMP Belmarsh, the reaction from the average Iraqi will be: “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”

What does all this mean on the ground in the Basra operational sector where British troops operate? First, all of the Iraqis who hate what the coalition is trying to achieve will have their low opinion of the coalition confirmed.

More seriously, many of those Iraqis who are working with the coalition, or have some residual goodwill towards the coalition, will find their resolve wavering. Many will allow themselves to be swayed by the opposition who claim that they are being oppressed under a brutal occupation. Information from friendly elements may be much harder to acquire and there may be a rise in the general level of resistance. Thousands of British troops doing an extremely difficult and dangerous job on the ground may be at a higher risk than they are already.

It is probably fair to say that there is only one wheel left on the wagon that is the occupation of Iraq. The scale of the insurgency appears to be increasing daily and we now have two insurgent groups to deal with — Sunnis and Shias. There are nowhere near enough troops on the ground to fight their way through the problems of the insurgency, and instead of fighting we are going to have to do a lot of talking in the next few days.

Another week similar to the one that we have just witnessed will almost certainly mean that the final wheel comes off. If we lose that final wheel, the consequences for Iraq, the coalition and the region as a whole are almost unimaginable.

What is likely to happen in the long term? It begins to look as though there is going to be a rather messy political solution to the whole affair, possibly brokered by the United Nations. Expect to see an agreement where both sides can claim some sort of a victory, followed by a rather hasty withdrawal of coalition troops at some stage in the next six months.

Charles Heyman is the Senior Defence Analyst for Jane’s Consultancy Group

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