A tough regiment in a tough camp

The incidents of abuse, torture and humiliation shown in the photographs at the Royal Fusiliers' court martial in Germany happened at the main United Nations food store, known as Camp Bread Basket, on the edge of Basra.

There Major Dan Taylor, the Quarter Master of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was directly in charge of the facility and of the handling of prisoners there.

Camp Bread Basket was a sprawling set of buildings with a perimeter fence with watchtowersand makeshift fortifications, erected by Saddam's military and police. The facility stored food, particularly flour and bread-making materials, for the UN's oil for food programme. At the time of the fall of Basra to British troops in early April, 2003, it was full to bursting.

The Fusiliers Battle Group, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Patterson, had fought a difficult night battle to seize the complex of yards and warehouses. The Fusiliers had faced days of sniper and mortar fire across one of the four main bridges into Basra.

Some 150 to 200 guards and militia had tried to defend the warehouses, although it is believed

some had just taken shelter from fighting in and around the town.

The warehouses were crown jewels for the old Saddam regime. Interrogation of the former dictator and other evidence from former regime members suggests that Saddam and his circle were manipulating the sale of oil for food material to amass a fortune of about $11 billion for their own use.

Almost everybody in Basra knew what was in the complex, which was why Camp Bread Basket became a target for looters. By the end of April and the beginning of May, Basra was gripped by a frenzy of looting - almost anything that could move was taken, and with it a lot not designed to be moved. Doors, washbasins, lavatories, windows, taps, plugs, pipes, copper wiring were torn from public buildings including hospitals.

It was in this atmosphere that the Fusiliers decided to take tough action against prisoners suspected of looting, though at what level this was decided is still sub judice. The Fusiliers are a tough regiment recruited largely from across the Midlands and in part from London; their origins are among the oldest of the British infantry line regiments. In peace and war, the Quarter Master is a key figure in a battalion like this, the man in

charge of supply, security, and much of the unit's welfare.

Generally he is older than his brother officers, and is usually promoted from the ranks where he will have held a pivotal position such as Regimental Sergeant Major.

As a figure of authority in the battalion he will rank next to the commanding officer and the RSM of the day. He is somebody to be looked up to.

The Fusiliers had a tough campaign in taking one of the four main bridges in Basra. They charged across the bridge in small sections of eight or 10 men at a time under fire from mortars, snipers, machineguns, and occasional rocket propelled grenades. Their commander, Lt-Col Patterson, is a charismatic and articulate officer credited with being a high flier in the Army.

Many troops had to live by the Bread Basket for months after the battle for

Basra, sleeping on open decks in warehouses in conditions which bordered on squalid and in the searing heat which rose to above 50C by the time they were due home in July 2003.

The regiment escaped further cuts and amalgamation in the recent restructuring of the Army, though it had been feared that it might lose its second battalion. In the reforms after the First Gulf war it lost its third battalion, which went down particularly badly as that battalion had taken the heaviest casualties of any infantry unit in the campaign.

Nine soldiers were killed and several wounded when a Warrior fighting vehicles was hit by Maverick missiles from an American A10 Warthog tank-busting aircraft during the advance through the southern Iraq desert into Kuwait. It was one of the worst friendly fire incidents of the campaign. The inquest into the deaths of the soldiers held at Oxford in 1991 made history by returning a verdict of. unlawful killing against the victims.