-->America's military commander in Iraq ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed territory, a senior officer has disclosed. An attack would almost certainly have provoked open conflict with Iran. But the British chose instead to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels.

"If we had attacked the Iranian positions, all hell would have broken loose," a defence source said yesterday."We would have had the Iranians to our front and the Iraqi insurgents picking us off at the rear."...

"Some Iranian border and observation posts were re-positioned over the border, broadly a kilometre into Iraq," a Ministry of Defence spokesman said.


Was geht denn da ab und wieso hat man darüber bislang noch nichts gehört[img][/img]?
<ul> ~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/30/wiran30.xml&sShe</ul>

-->>Was geht denn da ab und wieso hat man darüber bislang noch nichts gehört[img][/img]?


Nun, das war vor gut 11 Monaten, im Juli 2003. Vielleicht hatte man damals ja was darüber gehört, und inzwischen vergessen?

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The incident began last July when Revolutionary Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed belonged to Iran.

Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez then ordered the British to prepare to send in several thousand troops to attack the Revolutionary Guard positions.
</font>

Und nun ist es öffentlich geworden, weil einer der britischen Kommandeure mal davon erzählt hat...

Und die Sache ist auch schon seit 11 Monaten wieder vorbei, weil die Briten es ja diplomatisch innerhalb einer Woche klären und lösen konnten:
<font color=#0000FF>
The Iran-Iraq incident lasted around a week and was resolved by a telephone conversation between Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Kamal Kharrazi, his Iranian counterpart, British officials said.

"It did look rather nasty at the time," one official said."But we were always confident it was a mistake and could be resolved by diplomatic means. We got in touch with Baghdad and said, 'Don't do anything silly; we are talking to the Iranians.'"
</font>

Also nichts mit hektischem"was geht denn da ab"-fragen.

Digedag