Too Many Rotten Apples

The new video footage which allegedly shows yet more Iraqis being beaten by British soldiers is only the latest evidence of abuse to damage the reputation of the British Army. It comes amid claims that large numbers of soldiers from the 1st Bn, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the unit involved in the Breadbasket prisoner abuse scandal, were using cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana in the run-up to the war in Iraq. This post includes a transcript of a Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch interview, leaked to the Sunday Times, in which those shocking allegations are made.

As I have said before on this blog, I spent 15 years in the army and have always been a staunch defender of its reputation. It is of course true that a force of more than 100,000 men will always have a few bad apples. But as a former soldier I have been deeply shocked by some of the acts of ill-discipline that have occurred, and not just in Iraq where troops can argue – although it is no defence for some of the incidents - that they are under immense pressure. The apparent suicides of a worrying number of young soldiers bullied at army training bases at Deepcut and Catterick were too often made worse for their parents by the crass way in which the army treated them.

The treatment meted out to some of the parents of those young recruits, and indeed others like the parents of the six military policemen killed by an Iraqi mob at Majar al-Kabir, might seem relatively minor compared to the major breaches of discipline alleged below and in today’s News of the World. But it appears to be symptomatic of a far wider problem than the politicians, MoD civil servants and senior army officers seem prepared to admit. It is of course true - as politicians will tell us yet again today - that the majority of our soldiers behave in a way that should make us all proud. All the more reason why they deserve better than to be the shield behind which the politicians, civil servants and senior officers hide whenever some fresh scandal occurs. The good, honest soldiers deserve to see their superiors act to get rid of what is clearly a whole crate of rotten apples giving the majority a reputation they do not deserve.

The following transcript is of an interview with a private soldier, a Fusilier A of the 1st Bn, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who has since left the army. It was carried out by a Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch officer as part of a “lessons learned” investigation into a botched SIB investigation into allegations of drugs taking and conspiracy to murder at the battalion.

The interview took place on June 27, 2003. Most of the battalion were on leave after returning from Iraq. The day after the interview took place, Fusilier Gary Bartlam, another member of the same unit, walked into a photographic shop in Tamworth, Staffs to have some photographs developed. They showed naked Iraqi prisoners forced to adopt humiliating sexual poses at Camp Breadbasket near Basra in May 2003, unleashing an investigation into prisoner abuse that saw Bartlam and three other members of the same unit jailed.

The official SIB IC90 interview cassette seen and heard by the Sunday Times but no longer in our possession had a white label with a joint service crest on the left. It carried a background track in which a male voice counted out the time every ten seconds. The transcript has been edited to prevent identification of any of those named in the interview.

Fusilier A was not interviewed under caution. He was told by the SIB officer that he was not being interviewed with a view to being charged with any crimes and could be completely honest. The purpose of the interview was to prevent the SIB making the same mistakes again and “so that we as a policing agency can gain a better understanding of drugs in the army and the problems it poses”.

Fusilier A begins by admitting that he and Fusilier C bought a batch of 100 ecstasy tablets for 260 Euros from a German drugs dealer called Stefan in order to sell them on to their fellow soldiers. They bought the tablets on a Friday evening and by the Sunday afternoon had sold them all on to other soldiers within the unit for five Euros each, nearly doubling their money. Fusilier A says he only saw the drugs dealing as a way to “make a quick buck sort of thing” while Fusilier C was “using this money to feed his own habit”.

Fusilier A: “The guys who deal drugs in the army do it mainly to feed their own habit. It’s not to make money. Fusilier C, he had rather a large cocaine habit. He needed money to feed that. He got paid at the end of the month, within a week he’d spent his money. It had gone and he was trying to scrape some cash together to get drugs."

SIB officer: “How much do you reckon he was spending a week?”

Fusilier A: “Daily I reckon he spent anything between 30 and 50 Euros. He was the sort of guy who didn’t have anything. All he owned was the clothes on his back. He didn’t have a TV, no stereo, no nothing. His room was bare – locker full of civvies [civilian clothes] and that was it. I know that when we came back from [exercise in] Canada, Fusilier C spent 500 Euros on cocaine in one night. That was 10 grams. That was a lot of gear to be shoving up your nose.”

SIB officer: “To your knowledge did he commit any other crime?”

Fusilier A: “No that’s probably the only thing I could say. He didn’t start robbing people. He didn’t mug anybody. There was no other crime. If he didn’t have money he would suffer. You’d quite clearly see withdrawal symptoms kicking in. But he didn’t commit any other crimes that I know of to feed his habit.”

SIB officer: “Would you say there were other people in the same boat?”

Fusilier A: “Definitely. I would say there would be about, probably, another 15 or 20 people who are in the same boat as Fusilier C with the amount of drugs they use. I do know one guy who does commit crime to feed his habit and that was Fusilier B. I think he has now been discharged. I caught him walking out of the [accommodation] block with a stereo under his arm. I said: ‘What are you doing with that?’ He said: ‘I’m just borrowing it’ and I said: ‘No you’re not, you’re taking it back.’ I knew exactly what he was going to do because of the situation of where they got the drugs from. It was right next to camp and the house was for like refugees and immigrants coming into the country but it was known if you go in there you can get gear. They would take anything, trainers, they would take stereos, anything you could get your hands on they would take in exchange for drugs."

SIB officer: “To fence it out?”

Fusilier A: “Yeh. The guys are going to get a shock when they get back. This house has now been bulldozed down. The GCP [German civil police] and the SIB are fully aware of where this place is and what goes on there. Squaddies for a time were really reluctant to go into this house because they thought, because there was empty houses across the road, they thought it was full of SIB guys with cameras and binoculars. I know people, especially Fusilier B, [name withheld] and [name withheld]. They used to go in there in their uniform during the day. I have known guys, especially Fusilier B, who have been on guard and because there’s a pizza house just down the road, he’s said right I’m going to fetch a pizza, and while his pizza’s cooking he nips into the White House gets some gear, does it in the back of the guardroom.”

SIB officer: “When you say gear, what?”

Fusilier A: “It was mainly cocaine, they used to get from the White House and marijuana. Any sort of marijuana, resin, herbal, you could get it from there.”

SIB officer: “Anyone doing heroin?”

Fusilier A: “I have known guys do… What came down from Stefan one time, he got hold of a load of tablets from Amsterdam. They was called ‘boxes’. It was a heroin-based tablet and it was used for people in the dying stages of cancer as a pain relief and I’ve known guys crush these up and snort them and swallow them, whatever. I’ve never seen anybody inject. Injection in the army, of any sort of drugs, was a no-no. Even between the circle of drugs users if another person was found out to be injecting they would get a kicking because that is just a big ‘you don’t do it’ because they draw the line at injecting yourself with heroin or whatever. They’ll [one word indecipherable] anything else they can get their hands on to get high. I’ve never known anybody take heroin.”

SIB officer: “So when this character was going off on guard to buy drugs was he armed?”

Fusilier A: “You are armed when you’re on guard. You have ten rounds in your pocket.”

SIB officer: “You’re saying it was highly likely that there were times when he was armed…”

Fusilier A: “Oh armed and off his tits? Yes. Because everybody knew he was a drugs user he was taken out of his company. He was put in HQ [company] and for some reason they do put you on guard when you’re clearly, I mean he was a regular drugs user, to be put on guard when you’re going to be handling live weapons. It’s…”

SIB officer: “Bizarre?”

Fusilier A: “Yes. The unit do know there’s a problem. They do brush it under the carpet and turn a blind eye.”

SIB officer: “That’s taking us on to CDT [compulsory drug testing] and how effective it is. Whether it works or people can circumvent it.”

Fusilier A: “The CDT can be beaten. It’s a case of when the CDT comes round you always get a week’s notice. I don’t know where it comes from but somebody always gets a week’s notice that right it’s coming round next week. Like I’ve said before, the army guys who I know, who have been really caught by CDT, have smoked marijuana because it stops in your system. The guys who regularly use cocaine or ecstasy, if they know a CDT is coming, they just stop for a weekend or a five, six, seven-day period and they know for a fact that any trace of drugs is out of their urine. But I mean the system can and it is being beaten by the guys. I mean, the guys are becoming cheekier and cheekier. I mean I do know guys who regularly do drugs before a CDT and have never ever been caught. I don’t know how the CDT misses that. I don’t know how they test the samples, whether they just test one out of 100 or whatever. I don’t know how it works, but people are becoming more and more cheeky, and it is being beaten, and the more they beat it, the cockier they’re becoming, the more drugs they’re doing.”

SIB officer: “Were you aware of the mechanics being used if there was a surprise visit from CDT, how people might, if they thought their system was dirty, how they might beat it?”

Fusilier A: “We never had a surprise visit. The way Fusilier C and [name withheld] like came back off, it would be last summer’s leave. They had clearly been doing whatever while they was back in the UK. They came back and we heard the CDT team was coming and they said that they’d been out together and they’d [slept with] a girl who they’d later found out to have aids. So the day the CDT team came, they went to the sergeant-major and said we need to go sick, give him the spiel, and they got sent off to Hohne for the day while the CDT was there to have all these tests for aids. That’s how they got out of it once. I’m sure that excuse couldn’t be used all the time but there are ways of beating it again.”

SIB officer: “How do you think it could be tightened up?”

Fusilier A: “I think the battalion, especially the fusiliers, should have a 100 per cent, especially when these guys come back from Iraq, because they are obviously all going to be fired up when they go out on the drink and the guys who do drugs, the first thing they’ll do…  I mean I’ve seen it when I came back from Canada. They didn’t get drugs for six weeks. The first thing they did was went out and got geared up, got their hands on anything they could.”

The SIB officer then asked what would happen if the guard commander suspected a member of the guard was high on drugs.

Fusilier A: “It depends on who the guard commander is because if the guard commander himself is doing it, he’s unlikely to do anything. It’s not just the guard though, it’s range days is another thing. You get someone who’s - the night before he goes on the ranges - been doing whatever, ecstasy, cocaine, he’s still got it in his system. He’s still drugged up and he’s firing a 30mm Rarden cannon or he’s got a GPMG [general-purpose machine-gun] or whatever. It does need looking at because someone is going to get killed, either through an accident through work or through taking drugs.”

SIB officer: “Have you got a view on why there is that amount of drug taking in your unit?”

Fusilier A: “The reason it happens is the extent it is readily available. It’s cheaper than getting drunk. The army is not doing enough to keep the single guys entertained. There’s no organised activity. There’s no nothing. I know it’s not the army’s responsibility to sort of babysit 24/7, but when you’ve got a bunch of 17, 18, 19-year-olds you need to have some sort of – I wouldn’t say supervision – some sort of structure to their lives. These guys have come straight from school, straight from Civvy St into the army and to Germany and you’ve got the drink culture, the drugs culture.

“The main thing is in barracks, it’s boredom. Celle is in the middle of nowhere. If you haven’t got a car, you do find yourself being bored and just follow the crowd. Because from the time I came to Germany, and I’ve seen it with guys coming into the unit, they are just seeing this as the norm. This is how the fusilier works. This is what we do when we go out on the drink, we do drugs. I’ve seen lots of young kids who clearly can’t handle taking drugs. They do, just to follow the crew. Someone is going to end up dead. It’s just a matter of time.”

SIB officer: “Give me an idea of this list of 50 names you gave to your company commander.”

Fusilier A then names a junior officer who he says has since been promoted even though he told his company commander that the officer concerned had been taking drugs supplied by Fusilier C.

Fusilier A: “Fusilier C used to get a phone call [from this officer] on a Friday night: ‘Right. I want some ecstasy tablets. Will you sort it out?’ Fusilier C did this - you could say it was a delivery service - for the MSQ [married soldiers’ quarters].”

Fusilier A then names a warrant officer, two senior NCOs and four junior NCOs as being recipients of this delivery service. He adds that his company had a total of 125 men.

Fusilier A: “One long weekend, it was worked out, someone sat down and worked it out that 75 of these people had gone out and took drugs. I think there were about five people in the block who weren’t doing drugs. Only four people I know of have been discharged from the army about drugs.”

SIB officer: “Have you got a view on why it’s not been more vigorously sorted out?”

Fusilier A: “It’s the old thing. If you did a 100 per cent CDT and you had 150 guys fail it are you going to administratively discharge 150 guys from one battalion. There wouldn’t be a 1 RRF anymore. That is why it’s brushed under the carpet and not looked at carefully.”

Fusilier A then names a specific soldier who was regularly using marijuana and a specific superior officer who knew about this. Further details of this case cannot be given without risk of identification of one or other of the two men.

SIB officer: “So you think there’s a level of tolerance within this unit?”

Fusilier A: “Yes. It’s a very high level of tolerance as well.”

SIB officer: “It’s almost as if providing it’s not getting out of control it’s condoned?”

Fusilier A: “Yes. There’s guys, they have to have two or three lines of coke in the morning before they can operate. It just picks them up before they can go to work. To me that’s ridiculous. It’s only a matter of time before someone does too much. Is that what it’s going to take for someone to do something.”

The MoD said there is no evidence at the current time of any drugs problem in 1 Bn, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and that any allegations of a problem should be passed to the SIB..

Comments

[ziz]

"The MoD said there is no evidence at the current time of any drugs problem in 1 Bn, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers "

So that's alright then. Case closed.

[Nigel]

>I spent 15 years in the army

In the Int Corps and the drop-shorts? That's not the real army you REMF.

[Mick: For the benefit of those who have never been in the army, the drop-shorts are the Royal Artillery. The RE in REMF stands for rear echelon, which is not an accurate description of the artillery. I will leave the reader to work out what the MF stands for. Other would-be comment makers should note that REMF just scraped through my relatively lax moderation rules!]

[Chuck Unsworth]

REMF is not an entirely fair assessment. Some members of I Corps have been pretty close to it - albeit in undercover guise. And I have worked with the Gunners in some fairly tight situations before - particularly as Marine support. So let's not get too competitive, eh?

What this interview (and let's here enter the caveat, 'if genuine') clearly shows is that there's almost no self-discipline amongst the NCOs and (junior?) officers in this regiment. Time for a new CO, I think. Good discipline and morale stems from the top - and it's not evident here.

Admittedly, in my time drinking and whoring were the usual recreations. But doing either (or suffering the effects of either) whilst on duty were not good for one's career path. Drugs were regarded as a girly choice.

Where's the regimental (and professional soldier's) pride? My regiment was a family, with all that families entail, but officers and NCOs were expected to be examples to the troops. Perhaps, sadly, they are in this case.

[Linda Jack]

Well given the comments above, being a girlie in WRAC days"attached" to the I corps I guess I couldn't be expected to have the faintest notion about the real mans army - I know this tho, those idiots who have for whatever reason been so brutalised, along with the bigger criminal Blair, have done untold damage to our forces' reputation in the rest of the world. We should be out of Iraq - tomorrow. It is an utter nonsense to think we now have the moral authority to send more forces into Afghanistan. There are serious issues which the "modern" army is just not modern enough to cope with - what is needed is a root and branch review of what is really going on. Don't tell me Deepcut, Iraq or the goings on in the 1st Bn Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are all one offs.

[Harold]

I am an ex member of 1 RRF and think you
should b ashamed of yourselves pulling one of the finest infantry Battalions in th British Army through the dirt.
I bet you wont print this Message.

[Linda Jack]

Can I have another bite of the cherry and reply to Harold? Sorry mate, fineness lies in integrity, what are we supposed to do, cover up and pretend these things aren't happening? What utter nonsense. That way lies fascism and the undermining of all the values these guys are supposed to be defending. Grow up Harold and get a life.

[Chuck Unsworth]

And, at the risk of causing even more offence, may I too have another crack at it?

I think Linda's comments about integrity are absolutely bang on. It's my personal view that an Army (or Navy or Air Force) without a strong tradition and sense of moral purpose is doomed to failure. There have been many occasions in the past where that sense of purpose has served us well - even when we had our backs to the wall and faced overwhelming odds.

Soldiers must always believe in the rightness of their cause, and our finest victories have all been won on that platform. Look at the illustrious past of our armed forces and, more importantly, read what our troops were told by their commanders before any major battle. Then compare that with what is being said to our people now. Sound and moral leadership, both political and military, is essential and is now - regrettably - entirely lacking.

[david murphy]

Our army is beginning to show the signs of the same strains that the Americans had in Vietnam. The Americans solved their problem in the 1970s and we will have to do the same. It doesn't help that the prevailing moral culture in society is steadily worsening, but we are no worse now than the yanks were after Vietnam.

It would help if we could get rid of the morally defective government we have in office now of course, although whether cameron will provide the moral leadership and authority society needs is another matter.