"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.
True or not? Read the whole article and judge for yourself.
2 comments:
The mission, he said, was simply to "get the place and the people to a state where Iraqis could run this part of the country, if they chose to."
It's sad that, when offered a golden opportunity, the society of southern Iraq was ultimately unable to avoid going for the Corruption and Crazed Islamic Zealotry option.
I suspect that no amount of softly-softly approach (cue much arrogant British sneering at the beastly Americans and their 'heavy handed' approach) was going to get round the inherent fucked-upness of the place.
Wow. I knew it was bad, but (for obvious reasons) had no idea it was that bad.
Get the soldiers home and leave them to it I now think.
Fucked-upness is a depressingly accurate description it seems.
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