Bits of the Iraq charade

McClatchy has a good article looking at the sea of statistics and concludes that there has been no major security successes from "the surge." (It appears that Sadr's decisions have more impact on security than those of the US.)

Perhaps more striking this morning,

BRITAIN was prepared to withdraw its forces from the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April, but held off for five months after the United States asked it to stay, Britain's military commander in Iraq has said.

Speaking to Britain's The Daily Telegraph, Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, said that he wanted to leave Britain's Basra Palace base in April, which he said would have been "the right thing to do".

"In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do, but politics prevented that," Brig Bashall, 44, told the paper.

"The Americans asked us to stay for longer," he said.

Hmmm.... Let's see..... 5 months from April..... Wow. That just happens to coincide with the September reporting. What a coincidence....