"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.
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."
ReplyDeleteIt'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.
ReplyDeleteGet the soldiers home and leave them to it I now think.
Fucked-upness is a depressingly accurate description it seems.