Politics: Revolt on the Tigris (Book Review)

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To rebuild a nation and a society as complex as Iraq requires unfathomable reserves of patience, effort, high-quality personnel and money, plus a constant and sophisticated ideological debate. But despite his important and senior position, Etherington was never able to discuss any ideological aspects of Iraq with the Americans (from Bremer downwards). He writes that they regarded “their work as a brutally practical matter” with the simplistic aim, as he overheard one US Air Force officer say to a Brit, “to make the world safe for their grandchildren”.

But Etherington is not anti-American. He has nothing but praise for the US Army, and wishes that the American government had deployed enough troops to have enabled them to continue their excellent work. He is also appreciative of the comradeship and support of the Ukrainian army division (particularly the ebullient Major General Sergey Ostrovskiy) who provided his armed peacekeeping force — even though they abandoned him (on orders from Kiev) when the shooting started. Politicians ignorant of military reality are to blame; convenient reliance on the so-called Iraq “Rent-an-Army” scheme, of often ludicrously multinational military amalgams that could never harden into anything capable of offensive operations, was disastrous, as was the subcontracting of logistics and defence construction to one private company.

Etherington received little support from his FCO superiors. They were, he says, interested only in Britain being seen to take part, imposing inaction because of the political risk of suffering casualties. Towards the end, he was told that his contract would not be renewed following unfounded complaints about his behaviour by more junior FCO civil servants. Despite an eventual apology from Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war , he feels that, “In all my time in Iraq nothing caused me greater strain.”

Revolt on the Tigris reveals the effects of Tony Blair’s complete and personal failure to impress an independent British approach to the Iraq situation upon George W Bush. The Americans regard Iraq as a battleground for their “war on terror”, whereas Europeans “have reservations about the existence of this global foe and the very existence of an ‘Axis of Evil’.”

Sunday Times (UK)