The Iraqi Navy is making a comeback as a viable force in the Persian Gulf

UMM QASR, Iraq — It’s a hot September morning when P105 pushes away from the pier at Umm Qasr naval base near Basra and motors into the Persian Gulf. Nicknamed “Shark” by its crew of around a dozen officers and sailors, P105 is one of five 28-meter Predator-class patrol boats, armed with .50-caliber machine guns, that form the backbone of the reborn Iraqi Navy. The small force is based entirely at Umm Qasr, Iraq’s only large port and the economic lifeline for this struggling nation.

Today there have been reports of a dhow smuggling sheep; Shark is en route to investigate with a squad of Iraqi Marines aboard and two fast aluminum boats trailing behind. The idea is to find the dhow, board it, check papers, and, if there is any contraband, detain the crew and tow the dhow and its cargo back to Umm Qasr.

On the cramped bridge of Shark, wedged between the wheel and a laminated navigation chart depicting Iraq’s territorial waters — a 400-square-mile swath of the Persian Gulf centered on Umm Qasr and harboring the nation’s only two oil platforms — the boat’s captain, Talib Yaseen, stares at the horizon. In the past year, there have been suicide attacks in Iraqi waters against the oil platforms, pirate raids on Basra-bound shipping and a rash of smuggling in the waters between Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. Uncertain of what awaits, Yaseen orders “10 knots” and “man the gun.”

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