An investigation into allegations that Iraqi civilians drowned after British soldiers forced them into rivers following the 2003 invasion has been given evidence from a former army officer who says the practice of “wetting” was relatively widespread.

The former captain in the Irish Guards, in a witness statement to the Iraq fatality investigations, claimed that senior officers had been aware that troops were adopting the practice of forcing suspected looters into rivers and canals – known as “wetting” by British troops – as they struggled to contain to control an outbreak of looting.

The allegation has emerged shortly before the Chilcot inquiry publishes its long-awaited report on lessons to be learned from the UK’s involvement in the invasion.

A number of Iraqis who drowned are said to have been victims of “wetting”. The fatality investigations are a series of inquiries resembling a coroner’s inquest. In May, a soldier in command of one group of troops who were alleged to have forced one of the alleged victims into the Shatt al-Basra waterway told the investigations that he was unaware of such a practice.

In a statement to the investigation, the former Irish Guards captain said: “We used a variety of methods to deal with looters, such as sitting them in the sun with a bottle of water, taking their shoes off, or throwing them into one of the waterways. Because No 2 Coy [Company] had a body of water, throwing looters into the river was not something I would have been surprised to see them doing.

“I remember driving past and seeing it. It was commonplace for them to do that, but not for No 1 Coy. But if we had also had water accessible, we would have done that all the time.

“Looters would have been put into one of two canals. Soldiers were robust people and big, compared to Iraqis who were generally smaller. A soldier would throw a looter into the river, rather like a big brother would throw a little brother into a pool, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and launching them off into the water, which is how I saw soldiers from No 2 Coy throwing people off the pier.

“If it was a bridge, they would have thrown them over a railing or pushed them in. Looking back on it, I don’t think that we checked that the water was deep enough.”

It is unclear how many Iraqis might have drowned in this way. The families of two teenagers, Ahmed Jabbar Karrem Ali, 15, and Said Shabram, 19, have brought claims for damages against the British government after they drowned in separate incidents in Basra in May 2003.



Sir George Newman, the judge who is presiding over the investigations, was initially looking at allegations against four soldiers who were involved in the immediate events which led to the death of Ali, and who had been charged with manslaughter but cleared at courts martial. In May, after hearing evidence from the four, Newman said he was dividing his investigation into two parts.

In a statement issued last month, Newman said the second part would looking “into what was happening at policy level and at high command” over the treatment of looters in Basra.



The former Irish Guards captain’s statement was posted last month on the Iraq fatality investigations website. It was taken down shortly after a British army officer was questioned about it during unconnected high court proceedings brought by two Iraqis who alleged they had been mistreated in military custody. This witness denied the practice was widespread.

A spokesman for the Iraq fatality investigations said the statement was relevant to the second part of the investigation and would be reposted at a future date.

Newman has said that the purpose of posting statements on his inquiry’s website is to keep the public aware of lines of inquiry and to help provide information about potential witnesses.

He has also said: “The fact that a witness statement is on the website does not mean that the witness has been released as a witness or can be taken as having completed his evidence. The opposite is the case. The witness is available to be asked questions ... throughout the course of the investigation until the final report has been published.”

In his statement, the former officer described how crowds of civilians came out on to the streets of Basra to watch the fighting between British and Iraqi troops and remained there once the fighting died down. “Suddenly, we were in control of a city that didn’t have any water or electricity and we didn’t know what to do,” he said.

Initial attempts to detain looters were impractical because there were so many of them. “There were swarms of them, like termites, they stole everything, stripped everything bare. On one occasion, l stopped an old man who was stealing a lamppost from a motorway. I’d never seen anything like it before. They were nice people, so you didn’t feel in extraordinary danger, but they stole everything.”

The former officer added in his statement that troops then began pushing looters into rivers. “This practice was absolutely known and understood by every single person in Basra,” he said. “Unless you were an idiot, you could not have missed it and the talk of looters and what we did with them was on everyone’s lips all of the time.



“Everyone knew, even in our HQ – of that l have absolutely no doubt. I’m not saying it happened a lot, but it happened. If someone said they didn’t know about the practice and what was happening I would unequivocally call them a liar as everyone knew. It may have been that some people such as those doing the catering didn’t know, but every single officer knew.”

He added that he had discussed the practice during a meeting at the British army’s local HQ. “There is absolutely no way that our commanders could not have known about this,” he said.

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.