Call Us When The War

Call Us When The War Begins - This story - from the London Daily Mirror via the always-excellent Powerline - almost made me ruin my keyboard.

TERRIFIED Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces - because they thought the war had already started.

The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested their weapons during a routine exercise.

The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender.

The drama unfolded last Monday as the Para batallion tested mortars and artillery weapons to make sure they were working properly.

Sounds like an endless debacle waiting to happen, doesn't it?

The troops of the British Parachute Regiment are roughly the equivalent of our Airborne Rangers. They've been in action all over the place recently - Sierra Leone, the Balkans, and of course the last Gulf War. So their observations are worth something:

The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back.

"They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers - they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger."

I say a week from tomorrow.

Posted by Mitch at March 9, 2003 08:51 AM