Summary
YESTERDAY was another typical day in Iraq. At least 47 innocent people were murdered when a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad. Meanwhile, terrorist gunmen shot dead 12 policemen in Baquba, just north of Baghdad. An explosion also wrecked an oil pipeline near Beiji, and an American soldier was killed after insurgents fired on a patrol outside Mosul. This daily carnage continues a full 18 months after the fall of Saddam Hussein and three months after the handover of sovereignty to the interim government.
The security situation in Iraq is now verging on chaos, yet neither the White House nor Downing Street seems concerned, no matter how high the body-count in the streets of Iraq. President Bush faces re-election in eight weeks' time and must make a pretence that the Iraq problem is solved. Yet the popular mood is turning sour in Baghdad. The ordinary people of Iraq hated Saddam, acquiesced in his overthrow, and, by and large, are prepared to support the new regime. They continue to queue up every morning outside police stations in the hope of getting work. But if, every morning, people get blown up, and America and Britain do nothing about it, Iraqi sentiment will swing the other way.See the full content of this document
Extract
Leader:What We Owe the Iraqis
In this dangerous context, Mr Blair's decision to prioritise a domestic agenda, including the banning of fox-hunting, is transparently self-serving. Worse, it leaves British troops bravely holding the line in Iraq. They do not have the luxury of...
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