Iraq: This is Now an Unwinnable Conflict
by Patrick Cockburn

The government, whose members seldom emerge from the Green Zone, make bizarre efforts to pretend that there are signs of a return to normality. Last week a pro-government newspaper had an article on the reconstruction of Baghdad. Above the article was a picture of a crane at a building site. But there are no cranes at work in Baghdad so the paper had been compelled to use a photograph of a crane which has been rusting for more than two years, abandoned at the site of a giant mosque that Saddam Hussein was constructing when he was overthrown.

The same quality of make-believe mars British and American policy in Iraq. The current motto of both governments is to "stay the course in Iraq". This may be useful propaganda at home but Iraqi government officials counter that London and Washington have no "course" in Iraq, only a policy of endless zig-zags.


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