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Amendment #348927 (4th Edition) TO UK FORCES (IRAQ) SOPs: Actions On: Improvised Explosive Device (IED)

Household Cavalry

Regard IED with haughty disdain and rustle Daily Telegraph angrily. Maintain presence of IED in Knightsbridge is 'absolutely preposterous'. Return to Regimental Main Effort of defending Central London from the Roundheads.


Declare IED as the best thing since tinned champagne. Hold impromptu Pimms party to celebrate. Declare subsequent IED detonation as even more 'wizard prang', extend Pimms party and incorporate mandatory drinking of champagne from remains of IED as Regimental Custom for next 300 years.


Reduce words-of-command and halting in quick time to a minimum. Deploy No.1 Fatigue Party in close-order to polish IED to acceptable standard, followed by No.2 Fatigue Party to paint IED blue-red-blue and swab immediate area. IED detonated by massed bands. Deploy 2 x Battalions' worth of fatigue parties to swab resulting mess.

Armoured Infantry


Light-Role Infantry


Parachute Regt

Decide IED is a 'hat'. Deploy most junior paratrooper to 'Crack the hat’s skull'. Call the junior paratrooper a 'hat' when he gets blown up by IED. Remind all others that they are 'hats' because they weren’t there.

Royal Marines

Declare that IED is 'hoofing'. Get junior men naked with IED as an initiation. Turn IED into an improvised free-weight for bench pressing. Indent for extra-extra supplementary rations from the 'galley'. Hoofing.


Deploy bearded men 200km behind IED using HALO/Landrover/Submarine insertion. Tab into area of IED and capture IED alive. Smuggle IED out in burqha and extract to UK. Write a book per team member, all with hugely differing accounts of the Op.


Get into black rubber suits. Steal IED as above. Construct black rubber suit for IED. Move to a special swimming pool and do bad, bad things with black rubber-coated-IED. Turn on wave machine and let things get properly nasty. Be very grateful for UKSF non-disclosure policy.


Dig hole in ground to hide in. Proceed to watch IED for ten days to make association to Bravos. Divert entire Brigade's assets onto tasking. Manage to maintain dignity when informed three weeks later that 'it’s just a small rock'.

Royal Artillery

Level entire area ten square kilometres around IED. IED still functional. Repeatedly remind everyone that artillery neutralises, it doesn’t destroy. Create promotional video of IED neutralisation with images of Apache and accompanying Tina Turner soundtrack.


Send out a fit hottie to chat-up IED. Fit hottie lightly dabs a damp cloth over IED to keep it cool and offers reassuring words. Ends up sleeping with IED before announcing undying love and marrying it. IED later detonates when it catches her in bed with an Irish Guardsman.


Approach IED and preach about The Lord, oblivious to having entered a come-on. Rounds from nearby insurgents pass over and around the Padre without harming him. IED attempts to detonate and fails for some mysterious reason. IED is later found giving sermons to scared soldiers new into theatre.

Royal Engineers

Destroy IED using charge with ten times explosive content of IED. Build Squadron bar in crater. Use second massive charge to blow second crater in which to build & celebrate opening of Sqn bar/gym complex with BBQ’s every night for the rest of the tour. IED appears on next Sqn t-shirt.

Royal Signals

IED self-destructs to avoid Westlands Bowmanisation.

Royal Military Police

Issue IED with penalty fine of £1000 for loitering and not having FFD/Torniquet/Morphine. IED detonates in anger and annoyance at the monkeys wasting its time. Surviving RMPs issue IED with penalty charge for littering.

Army Air Corps


Intelligence Corps

Deny existence of IED to unit reporting IED, as they are not sufficiently security cleared. Issue BGs with a list of int-based questions to ask IED. Study Q&A analysis and find two main results:

  • Suggest IED may detonate having studied trend analysis of previous IEDs
  • Claim it’s part of a come-on involving 400 insurgents and Iranian heavy armour, as that’s what they read in The Sun.

Div/Bde HQ

Issue IED with a notification of controlled explosion. IED ignores/deletes message as does rest of theatre.


Get pictures taken whilst posing next to IED with another unit's GPMG. IED detonates due to someone making a video call on their mobile phone.


Send the RFS out to investigate IED. Fail to notice they never come back. RFS patrol later found upside down in a WMKII in a ditch, in Syria. Patrol Commander admits to being a ‘bit unsure about his position’, is informed his position is now ‘Private’

Royal Navy

Proclaim IED is a figment of the Army’s imagination. Go on a Mediterranean cruise for three months. Come back to Middle East waters. Proclaim IED is a figment of the Army’s imagination. (Repeat indefinitely). Occasionally get taken hostage to relieve the monotony.

BFBS Radio

Send 'shout-out' on BFBS Radio 1 to IED wishing it luck and playing I Will Survive. IED detonates out of shame and embarrassment.

US Army

Send out a patrol in a Hummer with Rhino deployed, then send out a Spectre gunship to destroy the nearest local village in retribution for when it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Australian Army

Threaten to withdraw entire country's assets from theatre as they heard a rumour there was an IED identified 40 miles south of their position. Demand hand-holding by other already over-stretched British units and then complain when we make them actively look for more IED’s.

Romanian Army


Danish Army

Arrive in theatre and promptly invite IED to their camp to join in their BBQ and Drinks sessions held ever night. Eventually starve to death as they’d forgot how to open their camp gates on account of having never left. IED detonates to attract attention and help.

Iraqi Army

Tip up five days after IED reported. Cordon area, remove IED. Corrupt elements of the IA then move IED five hundred yards further along road and bury. Assure MND(SE) that the area is now clear.

Iraq Civilian

Dig up IED. Take to nearest MND(SE) post and attempt to sell IED. Upon refusal, attempt to sell IED to MJAM. MJAM take IED and bury it at target area. Civilian digs up IED, takes to nearest MND(SE) post and attempts to sell IED. And so on.

UK Aid Worker

Show complete disregard for IED. Fail to adhere to Foreign Office warnings of IEDs. Pay no attention to MND(SE) briefs on IEDs and wonder what went wrong when their convoy gets destroyed by one.

Security Contractor

Use innocent civilian children to test road ahead of patrol for IEDs. When child finds IED, claim child is insurgent attempting a come-on and shoot child. And his family. And neighbours.

Private Contractor

Find themselves lured to Iraq by greed. Make more money in a week than some soldiers do in a month. Laugh at poorly paid soldiers being blown up by IEDs. Expect MND(SE) to rescue them when they get blown up by IED. Wonder why we don’t respond.

MAJ GEN. Sir Quentin Farquin-Aronse Winker (Retd)

June ‘08

--- In the meantime, ATO has snuck in, smacked it and bimbled off without anyone noticing...