Many will have vague memories of Col. Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment. Memories will click into place when I remind you that he is the British commander who addressed his troups on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. So inspirational was his completely unscripted speech that Bush had a copy on his wall in the White House.
That speech may well have been his downfall. After leading his forces through a highly successful campaign his career was destroyed by lies, false allegations and what seems like jealosy. Collins has been promoting his new book in the UK and has given his side of the events that led him to resign at the lack of support he had from the authorities. He is now openly questioning the planning for post-war Iraq.
Collins is not a completely unflawed character. He is described in one review as an “unashamed egoist” and clearly has little regard for “desk waqrriors”. In my own opinion it is wrong to glorify soldiers and thier profession should go the way of sagger makers’ bottom knockers. What cannot be denied is that if you must them necessay for the time being, someone like Collins in overall charge would be no bad thing. Let me remind you of what he said in that speech that could be described as in the best traditions of the British Army.
We go to liberate, not to conquer.
We will not fly our flags in their country
We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own.
Show respect for them.There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly.
Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send.
As for the others, I expect you to rock their world.
Wipe them out if that is what they choose.
But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.Iraq is steeped in history.
It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham.
Tread lightly there.You will see things that no man could pay to see
— and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis.
You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing.Don’t treat them as refugees for they are in their own country.
Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day.
Allow them dignity in death.
Bury them properly and mark their graves.It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive.
But there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign.
We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back.
There will be no time for sorrow.The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction.
There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam.
He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done.
As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.It is a big step to take another human life.
It is not to be done lightly.
I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts.
I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.
The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.If you harm the regiment or its history by over-enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer.
You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest — for your deeds will follow you down through history.
We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.(On Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons.)
It is not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself.
If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack.As for ourselves, let’s bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there.
Our business now is north.
Among Tim Collins’s claims are that he led his command to penetrate the furthest of any British group into Iraq. He was assigned command of one of the cities and within a week had restored power and water supples and set up a representative town coucil. When they left at the end of their tour of duty, all the men he took into Iraq came out alive. So what went wrong?
As Collins tells it he discovered a US Army Reserve Officer (a “sad, confused” school-careers-guidance counsellor and part-time police patrolman”) had assembled a group of Iraqi children and was posing for his “happy Iraqis I liberated” photos while machine guns were trained on them. The US marises attached to Collins were equally shocked and the reservist was chastised. That apology for a human being then made war crimes complaints against Collins.
Collins admits to causing injury to a local Baathist party leader. He had learnt that he was organising a murder plot against the Iraqis who had been co-operating with the British and then planned to attack the soldiers. Collins went to the guy’s home and demanded the weapons he knew were stored. In the dark the guy apparently hit his hed (accidentally) and when he saw blood started screaming. To control things, Collins shot into the kitchen floor which persuaded the Iraqi to stop screaming and hand over the weapons. Clearly not strictly accroding to the rules but as Collins put it, he would rather have one cut head than a group of Iraqis murdered and his men attacked.
Allegations appeared in UK newspapers of even worse war crimes, including murder. He was also investigated by the army but was not told of the allegations. Some included incidents happening in Basra, where he was never based. All were disproved and Collins has sincce received “considerable” undisclosed libel damages from the two newspapers.
In all of this the Ministry of Defence seems to have acted perversely and there are clear suspicions that the “desk warriors” were out to get him. He was kept in the dark about the identity of the US reservist who made the initial allegations and only learned of the further allegations from newspapers. In all of it the MoD kept their distance, even to the extent that he heard that he had been cleared of all allegations from the press and the first he heard of the award of a medal for his achievements in Iraq was also from the papers.
Since leaving the Army Collins has been highly critical of the way the war was organised. In a BBC interview Thursday he said:
“Either it was a war to liberate the people of Iraq , in which case there’s gross incompetence, or it was simply a cynical war that was going to happen anyway to vent some form of anger on Saddam Hussein’s regime,
Bush, Blair and the whole stimking cesspit of conspirators will do well to remember Collins’ words; “You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest — for your deeds will follow you down through history”