British "Defeated" in the South?

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad.

There doesn't seem to have been much good news from Basra, but this is a particularly negative spin.



The British, who announced their withdrawal from Iraq in February, are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.

Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq -- the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion -- and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.

The administration has been reluctant to publicly criticize the British withdrawal. But a British defense expert serving as a consultant in Baghdad acknowledged in an e-mail that the United States "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback." The expert added that this "has been expressed at the highest levels" by the U.S. government to British authorities.

One of the major problems with this conflict has been a lack of clarity about what constitutes "success". Deposing Saddam ... military victory ... a free and democratic Iraq ...? Without clearly defined success (or victory) criteria there can be no "victory", and difficult to quantify "defeat".

We might feel good about a good bit of Brit-bashing occasionally, but I have to say I am fairly disappointed that the administration is allowing this scapegoating. The USA has become careless of its allies (what few remain) and vilifying the efforts of the British will do litte except encourage our enemies.