IRAQI sailors and marines are defending the oil platforms which are their lifeblood after passing their sternest test yet.

A Royal Navy-led team of experts has been providing training and guidance to the post-Saddam Iraqi Navy since the toppling of the tyrant four years ago.

The Naval Transition Team (NaTT) helped design a gruelling series of challenges and tests – fire-fighting, damage control, gunnery and force protection – to prepare the patrol boat crews for duties at sea, defending coastal waters and the oil platforms.

Having given four years of instruction, the NaTT sailors stood back and let their Iraqi counterparts take charge, chiefly offering advice as the fledgling Navy was tested by Exercise Smoking Barrel.

The exercise, observed by staff from Combined Task Force 158 – the group of international warships which patrol the northern Gulf, led by HMS Cornwall and Cdre Nick Lambert at present – was designed to see whether the Iraqis could respond to a series of fast and furious tests, notably raids by fast attack craft from the US Navy.

With Smoking Barrel over, the CTF 158 staff gathered the Iraqis and their NaTT mentors. Their words after the opening ‘Pass’ were drowned out by the cheering Iraqi sailors.

“The NaTT has been working really hard with the Iraqi Naval Training School over the past two months and it’s a great day to see the Iraqi Navy back on patrol,” said lt James Taylor, one of two principal patrol boat mentors.

The resumption of patrols by Iraqi boats is the first step down a long road which will eventually see the Iraqi Navy, based in Umm Qasr, take full responsibility for the security of their national waters.

And that means that the NaTT will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future, but its CO Capt Tim Stockings believes the work of the team is perhaps not fully appreciated by the rest of the RN/RM, not least because events elsewhere in Iraq often cloud people’s opinion of the country.

“The NaTT is an unalloyed success – the Iraqi Navy are coming on in leaps and bounds and are by far the most progressive of the Iraqi Armed Forces,” he pointed out.

“The Iraqis are charming people, battling to triumph in adversity, and we all find the contact we have with them is the real pleasure of being in Umm Qasr and one of the greatest rewards on offer.”

The captain is looking for volunteers from across the RN and RM to build on the existing success from leading hand up to lieutenant commander ranks or equivalent.

“Every single member of the team has a key role to play here – some of my best mentors are also my most junior,” Capt Stockings added.