De Independent bericht:'Retreat from Basra: the slow death of the Iraq campaign.
In the week that British forces departed from Basra Palace, Kim Sengupta reports on the propects for a country where so many have died – and are still dying
Hassan Ali Ibrahim remembers his father talking about the last time the British were in Basra. The fighting that took place then spread across Iraq as the Shias in the south, the Sunnis in Baghdad and the Kurds in the north rose up against the invaders.
The rebellion came after Major-General Sir Stanley Maude had captured Baghdad in 1917. Six thousand Iraqis and 500 British and Indian troops had died by the time it had been put down after a prolonged campaign of attrition.
Following the invasion of the country in 2003, the headquarters for the small UK contingent in Baghdad, working with the Americans, was named Maude House. It was an ill-advised choice, for what has happened since bears remarkable similarity to events 90 years ago.
No one knows quite how many Iraqis have died in the four years since Saddam Hussein was deposed. One estimate says 655,000. We can, though, be sure how many British servicemen and women have perished – 169, and counting.
The British began their retreat last week, moving out of Basra Palace, Saddam's former southern residence, to the airport, ready, apparently, to move again if the Iraqi authorities need help. The question that Iraqis ponder is: what has it all achieved?
In terms of establishing an orderly government in Basra, and a decent life for its people, the occupation has been a failure. Militias rule the roost, though there is a fragile balance of power among rival Shia units, while the British became sitting ducks for insurgent attacks, with 90 per cent of the violence here directed at them.'
Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2944349.ece
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