US surge is failing, says UK's Iraq envoy

[cal04]

The "troop surge" by American soldiers in Iraq is not working, one of Britain's senior military officials in Baghdad has said.

In a pessimistic assessment of the strategy designed to pull Iraq back from all-out civil war, Alastair Campbell, the outgoing defence attaché at the British Embassy in Baghdad, claimed that extra US forces were not achieving the desired drop in violence.

Mr Campbell, whose remarks may cause embarrassment to Downing Street and anger in Washington, said that the casualty figures for April - in which 1,500 civilians are believed to have been killed - provided no "encouraging" evidence.

Speaking on the record last week to a public audience at Chatham House, the London-based foreign-policy research institute, he said: "The evidence does not suggest that the surge is actually working, if reduction in casualties is a criterion. The figures in April were not encouraging."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/20/wirq120.xml

[Duer 157099]

1. Why do the Brits hate America? n/t

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. But don't worry...

...we'll find a way to blame the Iraqis themselves. Yeah, this whole mess is their fault. They didn't step up, the failure is theirs and theirs alone. God bless Merika.