Do the Macc Lads have a better grasp of desert warfare than Field Marshal Lord Bramall?

FRANK JOHNSON

It has come down, it seems, to two related but separate issues: there is a 'should' issue, and a 'would' issue. Should the Americans attack Iraq? Would they win a quick and relatively bloodless victory if they did — the 'less' in 'bloodless' being concerned with their forces' blood rather than Iraq's. . . .

The 'should' question is a moral question, the 'would' a strategic one. It is the latter which concerns me here. How easily can Saddam's forces be overcome? Would he really lure the Americans and the British into the cities, including Baghdad? If he is confident that they would fight, that would be his tactic. His hope would be that, enticed into streetfighting, the Americans would not fight house-to-house with infantry. If they saw so much as a rifle in a house, they would destroy the house with heavy weapons, inflicting civilian casualties. That is what Saddam, and much of the world, would expect.

Thus Saddam would also ensure that his troops were massed near hospitals and orphanages. The resultant worldwide outcry against America would force President Bush to change his tactics. The American infantry would have to advance more slowly. Their casualties would increase. President Bush would hear another outcry, this time from American voters. His war aim would have to become less ambitious. Saddam might survive. If he did, we may be sure that Mr Bush would not.

We laymen — among whom it is reasonable to include the politicians. including Mr Bush and Mr Blair — do not know for sure the answer to the 'would' question. Our difficulty is the greater because the authorities are divided. That most distinguished military historian Sir Michael Howard, former Regius professor of modern history at Oxford, seems to be against such an attack. Or at least, his writings so far on the present crisis suggest that he is not sure whether such an attack would go well. That is also the publicly stated position of Field Marshal Lord Bramall, the former chief of the defence staff, and of General Sir Michael Rose, the former commander of our forces in Bosnia.

This brings them into dispute with the strategic assessment carried out by the Mace Lads. The who? I said the Mace Lads. They were a rock band which flourished between 1982 and their final concert at Rock City, a Nottingham venue, in December 1995, for which information I am indebted to the band's website, which is extant, They were called the Macc Lads, it should be explained, because they came from Macclesfield. Some readers may be unfamiliar with this ensemble. It had four members. They never appeared at the Wigmore Hall, so far as I can trace.

During the Gulf war they composed and recorded a song which will be of great value to Mr Bush and Mr Blair as they move towards their difficult decision. It was included in a compilation, issued on disc, called Twenty Golden Crates. Again, some readers may be unfamiliar with this song cycle. It should therefore be explained that 'crates' is not a misprint for 'greats': it is a reference to beer. Beer inspired much of their work rather in the way that champagne inspired Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar and Noel Coward. The lyric in question is as follows:

There were a load of smelly Arab twats

In Bag-fuckin'-Dad

With greasy hair And sweaty bums They'd never heard of Boddingtons A different culture And a different race No chippies in the fuckin' place Give us back fat Terry Waite Or get a Doctor Marten in your face Chorus: Ayup, Ayup, Ayup, Ayup They got our back up Without a doubt Time to sort those A -rabs out Saddam H000sein He lives in fear Of real men who can hold their beer Sing eh, eh, eh The lads are on their way With bayonets and tommy guns And bellies full of Boddingtons Chants: Ayup, Ayup, etc.

Sheep's eyeballs And camel crap Are all they eat In Eye-fuckin'-Rack But after a scrap with English navy They'll ask for the recipe for chips and gravy

I have perforce quoted the work in evens°. This, it will be noticed, shows the Macc Lads in contradistinction to, inter alios, Sir Michael Howard. In advance of the war, it is not for me to judge between the Macc Lads and Sir Michael. But the outcome of the Gulf war vindicated the band's analysis. The Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait did indeed prove inferior to those of the American-led coalition. They fled. The road

to Baghdad lay open. Yet Sir Edward Heath and Lord Healey had assured us that forcing the Iraqis out of Kuwait would be full of difficulties. We would incur great casualties. Sir Edward predicted that, even if the Iraqis were indeed forced out, they would have set fire to all Kuwait's oil wells, rendering them useless for years ahead. That did not happen.

Sir Edward and Lord Healey were disproved — some might say humiliated — by the Mace Lads. Admittedly, in military matters, the Lads were professionals. They knew the capabilities of our armed forces. We could not expect Sir Edward, in particular, to know about Boddingtons. It is a distinguished northern beer. Sir Edward, had he heard of it at all. would have assumed it to be, say, a London gentlemen's club or an auction house of the status of Bonhams.

Now, once again, as war in the region looms, the Mace Lads' judgment will be tested. For we may be sure that, in the intervening decade or so, the band's members — though dispersed — have not changed their assessment of the relative capabilities of the British and Iraqi armed forces. But there was something lacking in the lyric which I quoted above. It contained no reference to the American armed forces. We do not know the Lads' opinion of them. Presumably, American troops are strangers to Boddingtons. Chips and gravy must be long gone from the US army's field kitchens, dominated, as they must be, by broccoli. In any case, half the American infantry are said to be women. The Macc Lads do not seem to be feminists.

But the band's prediction last time depended very much on their view of Arab civilisation, so different from that of T.E. Lawrence, Freya Stark and Wilfred Thesiger. That probably remains unchanged. What must be assumed to be still the band's opinion — that, correctly deployed, the West will win quickly — has produced an identity of view between the Lads and the equally gifted Sir John Keegan, as stated in his capacity as defence editor of the Daily Telegraph. I must emphasise that the band's view of Arab cuisine, personal hygiene and physical appearance is not necessarily that of Sir John.

If there is war, it will be a clash of experts as well as of armies. If Saddam's forces collapse, and the American-led action has a quick outcome, the Mace Lads will have disproved Field Marshal Lord Bramall and most of academe.