Guardian;Deeper into the Iraqi quagmire

[Englander]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1333014,00.html
Robin Cook
Friday October 22, 2004
The Guardian

>>When they come to write the history of the Iraq adventure, the decision to deploy British troops to the US sector may be seen as the tipping point at which the patience finally snapped of many of those who had hitherto given Tony Blair the benefit of the doubt. In the corridors of Westminster it was a common experience to find backbenchers who, for the past two years had grimly defended the official line, expressing incomprehension that they were being asked to march further into the quagmire.

>>Labour loyalists have been pleading for Iraq to be allowed to slip out of the headlines to leave space to be filled by Labour's domestic agenda. Much of the fury of the past week is that their own government should have come up with a wheeze that has put booster-rockets on the Iraq story and propelled it to the top of the bulletins.

>>An inescapable consequence of the decision to embed British troops in the US sector is that our forces will become tarred by association with US methods and held responsible for the civilian casualties that result. This danger is all the more acute as the stated purpose of redeployment is to free up US forces for an all-out assault on Falluja. The most disappointing feature of the past week is that no one in government appears to have asked whether it makes sense to facilitate a second siege of Falluja.

>>The last time the US marine corps attempted it they left behind several hundred civilian dead and uproar across Iraq at the treatment of the residents of Falluja. If they now repeat that level of violence, US forces will not exterminate the resistance but fuel hostility to their occupation. It is a strategy that could only be endorsed by those who can keep the faith that there is a military solution because they labour under the delusion that the insurgents are only a few thousand international terrorists.<<