Mixed messages from the desert

Mixed messages from the desert

By Paul Adams BBC defence correspondent, Kuwait

The Basra road - I already feel I know it well - a featureless desert highway that cuts through the desolate plain of northern Kuwait, and on into Iraq.

Just the one slight rise as it climbs the Mutla ridge, where fleeing Iraqis were cut down as they fled in 1991.

British troops are acclimatising to the Kuwaiti desert

Oh, and a sign that says, in fluorescent green: "God Bless US troops" - a reminder that here, unusually, is an Arab country where they just love America.

If you want to know what's going on as Britain and America prepare for war, you can do worse than spend a couple of hours standing by the side of this unprepossessing highway, with its long line of electricity pylons marching out across the empty expanse.

Wait a little while, and distant headlights appear through the yellow mist of a sandstorm. Minutes later, a military convoy rumbles by.

Trucks, jeeps, fuel tankers, buses with their windows blacked out, and armoured vehicles of every description. The slow, lumbering paraphernalia of a war machine grinding into gear.

Pretty soon, the convoy takes a sharp left or right, and heads off into the desert, churning up even more dust.

And the eye is drawn away from the highway, over low sand walls a few hundred yards back, to things you hadn't realised were there.

Rallying point

Sprawling tent cities, watch-towers and sandy car parks full of vehicles. Soon, you begin to appreciate the sheer size of it all. This is the heart of Camp Coyote - a vast swathe of northern Kuwait set aside for British and American troops.

Tens of thousands are already here, many more are on the way. Every day, up the Basra road, another piece of the military jigsaw arrives to be slotted into place.

In recent days, British soldiers have been much in evidence. The Royal Marines are here - so too the paratroopers of 16 Air Assault. Now, last on the scene, the Desert Rats, waving, grimacing or just plain concentrating as they drive by with their heavy armour.

British Tornado aircraft are being readied for combat

The troops seem friendly enough, and their spokespeople keen to show us how they're getting on.

But, for the moment at least, that's not what Downing Street wants. With the public still gravely concerned about a possible war, and MPs in revolt, the government's spin doctors have decided that we should not be exposed to unduly warlike images.

Hardly surprising, perhaps, but it's already having some farcical results.

With the press at home concentrating on issues like toilet paper and food, the first formal British media facility took us to the less-than warlike surroundings of a field kitchen.

Carefully honed image

Very impressive, in its way, but those charged with organising the event were quite open about the reason it was happening: this, they told us, is what the spin doctors want you to see.

By the time the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, arrived to inspect the troops, earlier this week, Downing Street's coyness came face to face with reality.

It's as if, having sent the troops out, the government would somehow like us to forget that they're there

On a chilly, murky afternoon, the men of 42 Commando laid out some of their kit for the minister to inspect.

There were weapons aplenty, including a handful of 105 millimetre light guns, parked in a row, their barrels pointing in the general direction of Iraq.

Even a couple of snipers, heavily camouflaged, peering from a shallow foxhole. It was contrived, static and felt more like a stand at a trade fair than British soldiers getting ready for war.

But somehow it was altogether too realistic for Mr Hoon's media handlers, who ticked off the Royal Marines spokesman for this martial display.

His response was terse: what exactly had the secretary of state expected to see on a visit to the troops?

Contrasting frankness

Across the road, at the charmingly named but equally bleak Camp Mathilda, we found elements of the US Marine Corps, making their own preparations.

We kill people, sir, and blow things up

US Marine

They, unlike their British counterparts, were allowed to show off, and describe in great detail, the sort of machines they use. And, when questioned about their precise skills, we found them disarmingly frank.

"We kill people, sir, and blow things up."

Perhaps Downing Street believes that the Americans can rattle enough sabres for two.

But there's something disingenuous about this whole media strategy. It's as if, having sent the troops out, the government would somehow like us to forget that they're there.

And so, day after day, we stand by the side of the Basra Road, waiting for the glimmer of British lights in the distance.