Summary
PRESIDENT BUSH will brief a sigh of relief today when, two days ahead of schedule, the US-led coalition in Iraq hands over to the interim Iraqi government. The recent upsurge in violence, with a series of car bombings and kidnappings including that of a US marine, have crowned 13 months of violence and dashed expectations in Iraq since Mr Bush prematurely declared victory.
Yet how much will change on the ground in Iraq from today? The vast Coalition Provisional Authority compound and its bureaucracy will simply turn into the largest US embassy in the world. The 140,000 US troops and their various allies will stay, and their operations will not be controlled by the Iraqi government. For things to change in the long term, the first requirement is security, without which reconstruction and society itself are grinding to a halt. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the war, now that the British and Americans are there they must finish the job of rebuilding Iraq and giving it a chance of democracy.See the full content of this document
Extract
Iraq: The Moment of Truth
That means that our troops must stay - perhaps into 2006 - and that there must be a new drive to train the fledgling Iraqi army and police force. That will be aided by the agreem...
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