Please don’t attack Britain and British forces because of the jingoism of the British press. I think that all countries media like to praise their own militaries. This is no different in the US. The British forces cited in your article weren’t there to gloat but to try and help the Americans.
“Colonel Loudon dismissed suggestions that there was any direct link between the tough approach adopted by the Americans in Iraq and the casualty toll that they had suffered since May 1. There were many different factors involved, he said, not least that the Americans were responsible for a largely Sunni population, the same ethnic group as that of Saddam Hussein. The British were in the South, dominated by Shia communities”.
US forces under Petraeus have taken on board the classic counter-insurgency doctrine of hearts and minds and minimum acceptable force. It seems to have really paid off. The US military seems to have been astoundingly flexible and adaptive these last few years.
I didn’t mean to suggest it was the British military was gloating (although in truth there was some of that). It is mostly those smug bastards on the BBC that gloated incessantly.