Brits say they are poorly trained for insurgency war

Sunday Times:

British soldiers serving in Iraq who mistreated civilian prisoners — using restraining techniques banned for more than 30 years — were ill prepared and poorly trained for the violent insurgency that erupted in the early summer of 2003, a long-awaited report by a senior army officer has concluded.

Brigadier Robert Aitken, director of Army Personnel Strategy, said that a number of soldiers had behaved disgracefully and treated Iraqi detainees “in a deliberate and callous manner”.

But the abuse was not symptomatic of a general breakdown in discipline in the Army, he added. The vast majority of soldiers and officers had conducted themselves honourably and professionally.

...

There is more. The report appears to have little to do with counterinsurgency warfare as now practices by the US in Iraq. that is too bad, because in the last year it appears that we are doing it right.

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