| Over the last two days On the box the have been three programs one with a journalist embedded with the British one with a guy out with the US forces & one from the states in Ohio looking at the families of returning and KIA troops.
The British only allowed the officers to make comments but off camera the troops are still having trouble with stoppages on their poxy SA80's, their boots are still melting and the Land Rovers don't stop ***** when the are attacked. Nearly all patrols just go through the towns without stopping apart from a few select areas and the infrastructure is worse than just after the invasion.
The officer was trying to say and demonstrate how they are training up the locals to take over, but in the images I saw the police couldn't even march in step let alone control the area and the rate of desertions due to intimidation made it a hopeless task.
There was a ten man unit with a few local guides trying to patrol 300miles of boarder to prevent insurgence infiltration much of which is assisted by the Bedouin tribes. I bet they feel totally overwhelmed but the task.
In the US program a road side explosive had been detonated in one of the US areas so it was decided to bring up a self propelled and shell a nearby Palm Grove this they did over night lobbing in a round every 15mins the next day the troops went into the village next door and handed out sweets and presents say how they needed to know the where abouts of the Ali Babar's, when a local elder said he had tried to contact the police to inform them of the insurgence in the area but the mobile link was down. The Officer in command said to this guy if you had democracy in Iraq you could change phone companies. (very weird).
And in the final program many of the families in Ohio seemed to be getting mightily pissed off with Bush, they supported their sons and daughters 210% but they expressed grave miss givings as to what the troops etc goals are and felt it was time to withdraw. One woman who lost her son said she was sickened by Bush trying to ban photos of the coffins being returned home, unlike in Regan's day when he was on the scene to honour the fallen. The father of a Son who died said he wanted to see what had been achieved but other than removal Saddam he could find nothing to warrant the death of his son that had occurred over a year after the invasion.
I know the media is very fond of putting there own slant on things but each program was made by a different TV company and it did appear from the info given, that things are not moving forward, and if they are not fast enough for the public back home, and the progress thus far made will be undermined by withdrawal forced on the governments by public opinion.
Personally I am not sure what the best thing to do is as I am not on the ground.
__________________
"Only thoses who lose freedom know it's true worth"
Unknown French woman interviewed June 1944 | 
Linear Mode
