It looked just like any of the other tugboats that had chugged out of the Khawr abd Allah river on the first day of the war. The British had initially boarded her looking for mines and weapons. They did a sweep of the ship but found nothing. Later the same evening a US Coast Guard cutter decided to take a look, with the same result.
It was not until the next morning that two Australian rigid inflatable boats were despatched to do a final check. They did the one thing the other two boarding teams had failed to do: ask.
According to one of the officers who was part of the boarding party the interrogation went something like this: "So, mate, have you got any weapons or explosives on board?"
PHOTO: AP
"The captain didn't just say yes, he drew a picture showing how the 45-liter steel drums lined up on the deck -- which the previous boarding teams thought were empty -- had been welded together and then split down the middle to make a hinged shelter for dozens of mines.
"Explosive! Explosive!" the captain said, pointing at the drums and to a raft being towed behind the tug that contained even more of the deadly cargo.
How the mines were discovered might be a mildly amusing story, but for the men trying to clear the river to allow ships carrying humanitarian aid up the river and into the port of Umm Qasr, that is where the laughter ends. For them it is a race against time.
Until the mine clearers have done their work most of the humanitarian aid, which is such an important part of the coalition's hearts and minds campaign at home and more importantly in the Arab world, will remain literally all at sea
The operation to clear the river is being carried out by six British minesweepers, a Sea Stallion helicopter, a Polish naval vessel and a US Coast Guard cutter, while the operation is being coordinated by the Australian warship HMAS Kanimbla.
Nobody knows how many mines there are in the river, but it is thought 1,100 Iraqi mines are unaccounted for.
Captured Iraqis have provided useful intelligence. Those on board the tugboat, which contained 82 of the devices, said they had been on their way out to mine the mouth of the waterway when they were told to stop and anchor by the patrol vessels.
The allied forces know they were lucky. If the men had known how, they could still have removed the bottom anchors from the devices and just let them float gently out into the channel where a number of British and Australian warships were bombarding the Faw peninsula.
But the sight of the guns blasting away had scared the men half to death, and they had decided to sit there and do nothing rather than risk having the shells turned on them.
When they were captured, the crew revealed exactly where they had been ordered to lay the mines, which included a type called the Manta, which can be set off acoustically, magnetically or by vibration.
The coalition forces have also been given valuable information by three crew members of an Iraqi PB-90 gunboat. Most of the sailors on board the vessel -- which was just about the last boat afloat in the Iraqi navy -- had been replaced by soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard.
On the night the invasion began the boat was ordered to go out and attack coalition forces. Three warrant officers, who were members of the original Iraqi navy crew, decided they did not like the plan very much and as the boat reached the mouth of the river they jumped over the side.
They got off just in time. The Revolutionary Guard, hearing an aeroplane overhead, decided to engage it. It was an American C-130 gunship, and it made short work of sinking the gunboat. Nobody knows what happened to the remaining members of its crew, but the three who had abandoned ship floated out to sea for a while before being picked up by the US cutter, Adac, and telling what they knew to coalition forces.
Mine clearance is a hi-tech business. The British minesweepers are made of plastic so that they do not set off magnetic mines. A sonar detects a possible threat and a remote vehicle is sent out to have a look. If it turns out to be a mine the vehicle places a charge, retreats, and then explodes it.
The minesweepers and the Sea Stallion helicopters can also tow a sledge-like array that sends out a magnetic signal and makes lots of noise to destroy magnetic and acoustic devices.
At Umm Qasr, which was the scene of intense fighting between Iraqi and coalition forces this week, divers will be used to clear mines below the quays.
According to Captain Peter Jones, the naval commander of the task unit, ports are the most difficult areas to clear. "They are full of detritus and rubbish, much of which gives a similar reading to mines," he said.
"It is always a tricky business."
Two American-trained dolphins -- which the US navy insists must be called mammals -- will also be used in the clearance of the harbor; the mark 8, which is trained to sniff out mines above the bottom, and the mark 7, which is adept at finding mines buried under silt and mud.
It is expected that the RFA Sir Galahad landing ship will be the first supply vessel to enter the port, some time today, with 232 tonnes of humanitarian aid on board. It will enter the harbor through a 30m to 100m channel that has been cleared of mines.
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