‘The trip to Basra Palace’

by W.Bro Mike Caseman-Jones PPrGStwd

PM and Secretary Waynflete Lodge No 4452

Having well and truly arrived in Theatre I thought it prudent to introduce myself to my new boss, the Provost Marshall for the MND (SE) who was resident at Div HQ’s.   I made my way there by coach, signed myself in and set about finding the J7 Security Sector Reform branch.   I managed to get directions and much to my own credit as a skilled pathfinder (not!) and ability to keep asking for directions I was able to locate the boss.  

I made the necessary introductions and it became clear during the conversation that I would be located at the Basra palace site and that I would need to make my way up there ASAP, as although my arrival in theatre was some 1 week early, it would be better if I started to commence my handover sooner rather than later, as me predecessor would be keen to start making arrangements to come home.

I managed to get in contact with my predecessor by phone and he gave me a verbal brief regarding what to expect when I got to the palace, and that he would start making arrangements for accommodation at his end.   All I had to do now was make arrangements for the flight up to the palace, draw all my allocation of ammunition and morphine, which is a must when serving on Operations.  

A friendly colleague in the HQ’s then let me know that I was on the next heli lift to leave in 1 hour’s time.   But was told “Don’t worry, if your not there it will do without you, oh and the next ones not until tomorrow night, good luck” Suffice to say much flapping later on my part saw me with all my luggage, dressed in uniform, body armour, loaded weapon ammo, helmet with chest rig and day sack standing in 44 degrees of heat waiting for the heli lift, oh and before you ask I was a little hot and perspiring slightly.

The helicopter landed, and as quick as a flash myself and the other soldiers waiting to go up were bundled in to the body of the aircraft, given a demo of how to put our belts on, and that rifles should be pointing towards the roof of the aircraft, and we were away.   Skimming the rooftops of the houses underneath and rising over the electricity cables then down again, zigzagging in order to deter small arms fire from the ground.

The flight its self gave me a great opportunity to see the surrounding countryside, and have a birds eye view of day to day life in Iraq.   As we passed over a motorway I couldn’t help feeling how ordinary it looked and not many miles away from how the A14 would look on a busy Monday morning, although a little dustier but not quite so congested!

After 20 minutes in the air we landed at the Basra palace HLS, debused and vacated the area so that those waiting to get on, could be seated and commence their journey back to the airport.   Once the dust had settled I was greeted by my predecessor who drove me to the accommodation on what can only be described as an electric golf car.   Apparently these buggies are used quite a lot by the palace staff as it helps get around the complex quite quickly.

I was shown to my room, which is commonly known as a Pod, which suprise surprise was air-conditioned with satellite TV and a DVD player.   No need for my sleeping bag here as the bed had already been made up and the sheets and quilt cover had been ironed and starched to crisp cotton finish.   I couldn’t quite believe my luck, and to be quite honest was expecting some TV personality to jump out of the wardrobe and make fun of me for the next 10 minutes for being so gullible as to believe that soldiers could live in such luxury.

I soon settled in and came to realise that as Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff this was routine perks and in FCO terms was the norm when on overseas deployment, although from my perspective it was more like paradise.   I learnt that the rooms in which were accommodated were build by the previous regime in order to accommodate Saddam’s security guards and Baath party hangers on, so they were going to be built well and were able to withstand the blast of high explosive, with all the doors being reinforced steel and concrete walls and roof about 2 feet thick, also reinforced.

The palace complex isn’t just one palace, its 5 palaces built in one estate all overlooking a lake which meanders trough the estate.   The lakes now have fish in them, courtesy of soldiers after the 03 conflict, and these fish have grown quite large although soldiers on duty here do spend some time fishing but put all fish back to help keep the fish population up to strength. 

Some of the palaces are in fact occupied by troops from other countries, all part of the multi national force stationed here in Basra although at lest two are completely empty, having been claimed by countries who are part of the coalition as their embassy, but never occupied or used.

On my second day at the Basra Palace complex (BP) I was fortunate enough to have a guided tour of the area, and saw for myself the luxury that Saddam and his cronies lived in, with large marbled rooms, gold plated taps and toilet furniture now damaged as the local populace tried to loot it after the war.  

The saddest thing I heard was that although 5 palaces were built not one was lived in, and the ground the Baath part commandeered and used to build on, was once a park and shopping area where locals would come of an evening to drink coffee, enjoy the scenery and just pass the time of day, or even sit on the banks of the river and watch the Al Shat river flow lazily past.

After a brief acclimatisation I started to get a hand over from my predecessor, who went through the IT system with me together with the day to day routine and also who was who in the embassy.   I had a more in depth tour of the complex, met our Multi National Force neighbours and began to get a grasp of the job, together with what was expected of me both from Div, and from the FCO of which I was now an integral part.

‘My first trip out’

After a short period of acclimatisation I was required to accompany two of the Prison advisory and training team to visit one of the prisons here in Basra.   As you can imagine at first sight a trip through bandit country to visit a prison is quite a dangerous thing to do particularly taking into account the increased activity in the area at the time.   We received instructions to report to the Ops room of the Force Protection battalion in order that we could get our briefing prior to deployment.

The briefing was given by a Lieutenant who was a platoon commander in charge of about 35 soldiers.   The first thing that became apparent as we joined the briefing is that all the soldiers forming part of the FP team were very young to look at, as was the platoon commander however they all seemed very switched on, and the briefing given by the platoon commander was very thorough, to the point and even more impressive was easy to understand without any of the usual flannel that accompanies briefings, but as they had been in theatre for some time these soldiers were the consummate professionals where I as a Squadron commander was very much a passenger.

We concluded the brief, donned our body armour, helmets and loaded our weapons ready to deploy.   The PAT got on board their vehicle with their CP team, and the move out began.   The move was slow going at first due to deception tactics by us and copious amounts of checking the route along the way, although during the move I got an opportunity to act as ‘top cover’ giving roof mounted support to colleagues on the ground.  It was strange looking at civilians through my rifle sight, but we all tried to keep weapon pointing to a minimum as we didn’t want to create the wrong impression with the locals, who were if nothing else just curious to see what was going on.

After 45 minutes on the road the temperature had reached 44 degrees, and I had drunk the best part of 2 litres of water, and the strange sensation was that most of the water came out through my pores, and I had no desire to get rid of it any other way, if you know what I mean!!   We eventually arrived at the prison and the inspection commenced.

I had an opportunity to look around the prison and see some of the inmates there.  I am not permitted to explore this avenue any further, however I was impressed by what I saw and with the communal spirit shown by the inmates.  The prison guards were very friendly and were not at all what I had imagined, and during the conversation we were making jokes and showing photos of our nearest and dearest

After the visit concluded we shook hands with our hosts and boarded the transport back to the Palace.   Again going was slow to fast depending on which type of terrain we were traversing, suffice to say the journey back took a little longer than anticipated as the drills had to be right, and there was no room for short cuts, particularly when lives depend on it.

As morning had moved in to late afternoon the temperature had continued to rise, and we were all now looking quite wet with sweat, and being that hot with little or no cool air coming in to the vehicle we were all starting to feel a little anxious and were looking forward to getting back, just to get our equipment off.   

Never were the entrance gates to the palace more welcome than that afternoon, as within 5 minutes we had parked up and were stripping off to get some welcome air to our now very wet bodies.   Just to give you some idea of the conditions, put your warmest clothing on with a woolly hat, get something heavy o carry then pop down to your local sauna and turn the heat up to 45 degrees then try some vigorous exercise, not recommended as regular activity but you will understand why most people loose weight whilst they are over here.

I am now just 2 weeks in to my tour but already I have started to get a flavour of the country and its people, although it would probably take me a lifetime to fully understand the true Iraq.   I am just pleased that I have had the opportunity to experience something, which ordinarily I would never get the chance to be a part of.