Not sure I believe this report....
The repeated Israeli victories of years past (leaving aside last year’s Lebanon crap) over ‘vast Arab armies’ are looking less and less amazing every day, I fear.
I guess rumor and falsehood counts as reporting from this media outlet.
The Telegraph is a blatantly Left wing publication. They’ll say ANYTHING to help the enemy.
I don’t think I believe it.
What’s more, although the British military is certainly competent, from what I understand they held back from doing anything in their area for the past several years, which is one reason why there’s a problem now.
The last thing they would want to admit is that the Iraqi army, imperfect as it is, accomplished something they never even tried.
Basra was handed back to Iraqi control last year after the Army withdrew from its last military base in the city.
Withdrew?? When I read about it last year I thought it was a retreat.
This is total BS. A terrible hit piece.
They said the failure had delayed the British withdrawal by "many months".
The British have been winking at the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army in Basra for five years and have done absolutely nothing about the presence of a private army of terrorists basically running the second-largest city in Iraq. Sadr would run the city, and would keep a "peace" that would in time allow the British to leave.
Maliki's military action against Sadr destroyed the understanding that the British had reached in Basra--but it was an understanding that needed destroying.
Your view: Is now the time to pull British troops out of Iraq?
From the comments section:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/17/view18.xml
“...remember when the world was round and there were 200,000 more people on the planet and the twin towers restaurants were a nice place to have lunch and Iraq was a friend of America. Bin laden construction was doing business with Bush oil and everything was cool.
Posted by robin hood on April 19, 2008 6:28 AM
As we have pointed out repeatedly for years there will be no victory until we see leadership that takes us off the ethanol boodoggle and the dance with the windmills in your car crowd and takes the oil weapon away from the Supreme Council of Religious Fanatics by breakthroughs in oil production, refining and fuel that are now blocked a la the descriptions of George Gilder years ago.
We can actual solve the problem that enables the war against us or we can continue to subsidize the problems and the enemy. We see no indication that any one in either party intends to do this.
are we sure that this isn’t a two or three year old story somehow? It seems to have nothing in common with the recent butt kicking of Sadr happening in Basra this month. Of course, there are US troops assisting and supervising in Basra now and not Brits.
Something about this doesn’t add up at all. But considering that every media source in the UK is desparate to get the Brit troops out of Iraq regardless of the reason, I would expect them to spin anything to the point of making up events entirely.
Part of me doesn’t like the idea of training an Iraqi army. This will bite us and Israel in the ass down the road if we play our cards wrong.
And whyTF is Mookie still alive?
In fact, I'd love to personally shake Prime Minister Maliki's hand and congratulate him on having the balls to order the assault, to go down to Basra a head of time to lead from the front and most importantly, to have made this decision on his own, without approval or knowledge of the Americans. Maliki proved that he's in charge. He's taking back his country from the terrorists, the Baathists, the Sunni insurgents and the Shia militias. Maliki is carrying out his mandate to set up a functioning, united Iraq, an Iraq that determines its own future and one free of Iranian interference. That's what his voters want and that's what they'll get.
I realize this creates another headache for General Petraeus, but that's the price of having friends to work with.
BS.
Hey, Telegraph..stuff it!
...
According to this article above:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2004190/posts
- - - Iraqi forces then moved in and did the job.
