UPI.WIRE
Feature: Commanders bicker in Iraq
  WASHINGTON, (UPI) March 22, 2005
 When U.S. Army Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez visited Spain's military contingent at Najaf during a battle with Iraqi Shiite guerrillas he reproached the Spanish commanders for not using the F-16 fighter planes, "questioned various other military decisions made during the fighting, and even called in into question the Spanish commitment to the combat." So said the newspaper El Pais Tuesday in a detailed account of sharp differences between the U.S. and Spanish commanders over tactics, strategy and objectives.

In the months between the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime and March 2004, when Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced their withdrawal from the U.S.-led coalition, 1,300 Spanish troops were stationed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. El Pais interviewed senior officers who were there for a detailed account of their clashes with their American allies.

A Spanish colonel is full of praise for U.S. soldiers. "The devotion and spirit of sacrifice of the U.S. soldiers was spectacular," El Pais quotes Col Alberto Asarta, the highest ranking officer at Al Andalaus, the Najaf base, as saying. The squabbling was among the brass.

One clash described by the paper occurred in the spring of 2004. The U.S. high command ordered the closing of the Sharia courts set up by the Shiite clergy in Najaf to run the city in accordance with Islamic law. The U.S. Provisional Authority in Baghdad headed by Paul Bremer was working on establishing a secular legal system in Iraq, and the Americans saw the Sharia court as a challenge to their plans -- particularly as the power behind it was the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

The Spanish commander refused to comply, explaining that closing down the court would upset the delicate stability in the town that his troops had worked hard to achieve and would result in violence. The American response was to dispatch a U.S. special forces unit to Najaf to arrest al-Sadr's right hand man Mustapha al Yaqubi without warning the Spanish forces.

As the Spaniards had warned, the arrest, said El Pais, sparked "the bloodiest battle the Spanish troops were involved in during their turbulent mission," and produced "the worst falling out between the U.S. and Spanish commands since the beginning of the (Iraqi) invasion." With the arrest of al Yaqubi -- considered a moderate in al Sadr's organization -- the Spaniards lost a useful go-between to the radical cleric. The U.S. authorities also, incidentally, also had a warrant out for the arrest of Moqtada al Sadr, but it was quietly dropped. When the Spanish commanders demanded an explanation for arresting al Yaqubi without warning, the U.S. response was that the proper procedures had been followed.

The force of the attack by Moqtadar's Mahdi army caught the Spaniards by surprise, but it was a U.S. soldier who lost his life in the fighting along with an Iraqi and another soldier from El Salvador. Two Spaniards were wounded.

Senior officers from other coalition members -- notably Britain and Italy -- have spoken of differences with their U.S. counterparts over what they regarded as heavy handed American tactics. Earlier in the occupation, some British military figures have gone out of their way to draw attention to nervous "trigger happy" U.S. soldiers. But the El Pais article is the first time that specific clashes have been described in detail. The outspoken article probably reflected the current strain in relations between Madrid and Washington. The Bush administration has yet to forgive Zapatero for the Spanish pullout.

El Pais also describes another clash of wills over the Najaf hospital where guerrilla snipers had take up positions. U.S. military personnel in the area wanted to call in American air cover to bomb the hospital. Col Asarta rejected the idea because it would put civilian patients and staff at risk -- and it was the biggest hospital in Najaf. In the end the colonel decided to send in a team of El Salvador commandos who, says El Pais, "secured the hospital floor by floor."

The Spanish contingent's phased withdrawal, when it came, was carried out at night to reduce the danger of attack. The 50-mile run on the stretch of highway from Najaf to the southern city of Diwaniya became known as El Camino de Santiago after the famous pilgrimage route in Spain. After that came the 300-mile trek to the Kuwaiti border. By then Gen Jose Manuel Munoz had taken over the command of the Spanish force, known as Plus Ultra III. "From (April) 18th to the 21st we went from being the Plus Ultra III Brigade to the Withdrawal Support Contingent," he told El Pais. "It was a 180 degree turnaround and meant a huge effort."