Here’s a story which didn’t get as much attention or analysis on the major blogs as it should have, due to the holiday season.

British troops ended the terrorist operations of a rogue Iraqi police station in Basra, Iraq’s second biggest city. The raid on Basra’s Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) involved tanks, helicopters, and more than 1000 soldiers. The law officers are suspected to be responsible for scores of sectarian murders, attacks on security forces, and the systematic torture of prisoners. The SCU was also involved in arms and oil smuggling rackets from its headquarters.

The raid followed the arrest of seven local detectives charged with corruption and involvement with death squads suspected to have murdered 17 Iraqi police academy employees six weeks ago. The British military raided the compound when intelligence revealed that 127 Iraqi prisoners at the station were about to be executed.

Soldiers from the Staffordshire Regiment and the Royal Green Jackets came under rocket-propelled grenade and automatic rifle fire as they closed in on the buildings shortly after 2am, but sustained no casualties.

The members of the SCU in the compound fled as Royal Engineers used a combat tractor to bulldoze the outer walls then stormed the internal buildings. After clearing the police compound and evacuating detainees, engineers used explosive charges to demolish the headquarters complex’s three main structures.

All detainees found in the SCU compound were transferred to another police station, which will hopefully uphold their human and civil rights. Many of them had marks which indicated that they had been tortured. Some has crushed hands and feet, while others had cigarette and electrical burns, and a significant number even had gunshot wounds in their legs and knees. Some officials, like Basra’s police chief, publicly condemned the raid while local residents privately said they were grateful.

UK troops actually had a confrontation with the police station over one year ago when two Special Forces troopers were arrested by the SCU for being on a surveillance mission. To rescue the troopers, British soldiers demolished the outer perimeter wall of the compound. The two troopers were found in a nearby house just minutes before they were to be handed over to an Islamic Shia militia for execution. The rescue mission provoked such a riot and non-cooperation by the local Iraqi governor that Britain was forced to apologize and paid compensation for the injuries and property damage to the station.

The decision to move against the SCU this time was made two days before the raid by Iraq’s Interior Ministry. An official said, “The minister decided to cancel the Serious Crimes Unit in Basra City and replace it with a new one based inside the main headquarters of Basra police. Some officers will be punished.” The SCU members are believed to be complicit in the deaths of British and Iraqi soldiers, as well as the murders of rivals and civilians who oppose their activities.

There is not only irony in the fact that the British paid for damages to the compound a year before they demolished it, but also in the fact that coalition forces established this police unit to prevent these types of crimes. According to a military spokesman, the unit was the “center of death squad activity”. It is clear that British forces knew of the torture and execution being conducted out of the SCU for months (and possibly years) before actually taking action. There is also an unsettling complacency from officials we negligently appointed to make Iraq a stable democracy. Yet, the ultimate irony in Iraq is that these very same atrocities were presented by our leaders as justification for an invasion of the country. Saddam is currently headed to the gallows for instituting a system of torture and execution in Iraq. What court will try our leaders for these same crimes?

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