Dying for politics

British generals have been putting pressure on the government to pull troops out of Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan which is regarded as "a more worthwhile and winnable battleground". The government has resisted the calls for political reasons.

Meanwhile former Foreign Minister Jack Straw shows why he lost his job under pressure from the US by telling the audience at the BBC's Question Time
that the situation in Iraq "is dire". He blamed the Bush administration for mistakes and for not following "the lead of Secretary Powell. The State Department had put in a huge amount of effort to ensure there was a proper civilian administration."

In the states Bob Woodward's new book accuses the Bush administration of ignoring the level of violence and unrest in Iraq. He is quoted as saying:

"The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better'."

In Iraq journalist have long had to live in fear. First from US attacks and more recently from insurgents and death squads. Now the Iraqi government itself joins the mix. New laws* make it an offence to ridicule the government or government officials. A dozen or more journalists have been charged and at least three have been imprisoned for these offences. On the 7th of September the "police sealed the offices of Al Arabiya...for what the government said was inflammatory reporting" and some other news outlets have been shut down.

The "Freedom Agenda"(TM) marches on.

*Note: it is rumoured that President Bush as tasked Attorney General Gonzales with "getting us some of them laws". The Attorney General was not available for comment.