British strategy: Beat Baathists, win over public
'People need to understand, this is not a football match'
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British "Desert Rat" Royal Fusiliers, Zulu Company, pose with a portrait of Saddam Hussein taken from local Baath Party buildings in Basra.
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KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait (CNN) -- Ten days into "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the British military's main focus is to eradicate Iraq's ruling Baath Party within the Basra province, British military spokesman Col. Chris Vernon said Saturday.
"Our seizing of a senior Baathist official has rocked their confidence and provided an excellence insight into that mire." Vernon said. "And both their headquarters in Az Zubayr and Basra no longer exist."
U.K. forces rolled into the southern Iraqi city of Basra overnight and leveled two statues. Vernon said the statues were thought to depict of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"The purpose of that is psychological, to show the people on the one hand, [Saddam] does not wield influence and, when we wish, we will strike at any representative token of that eroding influence," he said.
"It also, I should imagine, has sent quite a shock through the Baathist and irregular organizations in Basra that the British, with a degree of impunity, can go in at will and achieve that desired effect."
It is also crucial to win over Basra's civilian population, Vernon said. "While we are eradicating and targeting the Baath regime ... we've got to win increasingly the confidence of these people."
"Hence humanitarian aid. Hence talking to them in a low-level manner ... trying to win the people over and appear not oppressive to them, but on their side. I'm not saying it's easy, because there's huge fear and distrust there. And they're not yet at the stage where they believe the Saddam regime will go."
In a separate issue, Vernon said he hasn't received any reports of missing British soldiers, despite various media reports that up to five British soldiers were unaccounted for overnight in Basra.
Yet Vernon did confirm reports of another "friendly fire" or "blue-on-blue" incident, as it is also called. He declined to give any details, saying families had yet to be notified, and if he identified the unit, it would send 2,000 families back home into a panic.
"People need to understand, this is not a football match. There is no great clarity here. The 'fog of war' is a much accurate phrase. We are engaged in very difficult, very, very complex operations ... There will, despite extremely good training, very careful planning, excellent technological advantages ... there will still be incidents such as this."
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