Basra tank column
On Wednesday evening news broke of one of the biggest tank battles
involving British forces since the Second World War. A convoy of
up to 120 Iraqi armoured vehicles had been spotted breaking out
of the southern city of Basra in broad daylight, heading south towards
the British held Faw peninsula in what commanders described as an
‘offensive posture’.
TV news reports on Wednesday night and papers on Thursday were
filled with gripping accounts of the battle between British tanks
and the Iraqi armour. ‘British artillery and jets launched
a fierce attack last night on a convoy of up to 120 Iraqi tanks
and armoured personnel carriers seen pouring out of the city of
Basra’, the Guardian’s front-page story said. The story
had come from correspondents with the British forces, who had been
given accounts of the battle by commanders.
It was not until yesterday’s Ministry of Defence press
briefing that the truth emerged: rather than 120 Iraqi vehicles,
there had been only three. A contrite military admitted that the
error had stemmed from an ‘erroneous signal’ from the
coalition’s electronic moving target indicators. US Brigadier-General
Vince Brooks described it as a ‘classic example of the fog
of war’.
The Guardian, 29 March 2003
Classroom activity: Interpreting the
media
From Iraq: war and peace online
resource
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