A Looking Glass War

The armchair Generals have been out in force …..

General Anthony Walker, a former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, told Scotland on Sunday:

"The soldiers should have said to the politicians 'f*** this, we are not going into this conflict until you tell us how you are going to deal with this country once we have won you the war'.

"But they didn't, and it now looks as though we will be there a lot longer than we planned."

On the Today program on Friday 23rd 2005 the former Chief of the Defense Staff, Lord Bramall, declared on BBC Radio 4 (Real Player) Friday morning (23rd Sep.) that the operation has degenerated into a disaster and a review of policy and a clear exit strategy for British forces is required. He also said that there were reservations in the military about the invasion at the time – if there were, they were kept remarkably well concealed – and evidently ineffective.

On the same program Michael Howard who has evidently either lost his marbles or the help of some people who understand what is going on in Iraq suggested that the Coalition of the Willing should “confront the armed militias” including the personal ones of the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister. I was waiting for him to say …”Bring ‘em on”.

The program also quoted Sir Michael Rose ex head of the SAS, a survivor of Bosnia and all round bore and know all, as saying that the UK should summon up the sinews and take the courage to withdraw their forces.

In the Independent Sir Hilary Synott, who administered southern Iraq in the early months of the occupation is reprted

"I wasn't all that surprised to see what happened," he said. "We needed a very large number of foreign police to train a police force which under Saddam was reduced to traffic duties and extortion - it was a massive task to rebuild a corrupt and hated police force into one devoted to the people.

"But we were never given sufficient resources, and they came too late. There was totally insufficient preparation for the post-conflict situation, and all the attention was on reconstructing the Iraqi military."

Well here is an armchair critic before the war started...

Canadian Spectator
Bush's gang of mad beekeepers / E Teague March 19, 2003

I've taken Baghdad what do I do now?

What is uncertain is the aftermath. This is the variable never publicly factored into the thinking(?) of the Tony Sopranos of Dubya's gang; their deeds plant the seeds of future, furious, frightening resistance. As many as half a million Iraqi soldiers may be intentionally killed and perhaps 100,000 civilians written off to collateral damage. Think of the grief of millions after this slaughter, the conversion of that grief into rage, combine that with the internecine struggles based on historical ethnic fault lines (that the Ba'ath Party has repressed), and we begin to appreciate the explosive complexity of post-invasion Iraq.

This invasion will also ignite the well financed fires of Arab and Muslim (of all shades, hues and fealties) humiliation and anger. Either in the sands of the desert or on city streets, far from this war, the body bags will build up.

Now the Scotsman on Sunday claims under a headline, “Scrap Basra police and start again orders MoD ….

"Defence Secretary John Reid is planning to scrap the 25,000-strong police force in southern Iraq and replace it with a new military-style unit capable of maintaining law and order.

Reid ordered a root-and-branch review of security in the troubled province following last week's disastrous clashes between British troops and Iraqi police.”

Curioser and curioser.