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The fact that the Kurds are moving in on Baghdad is also significant. Generally, they have tended to stand separate from the travails in the capital and, with additional US convoys pouring over the border of Kuwait into Iraq (pictured below), Bush's "surge" strategy is beginning to take shape.
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Not for Harding the general media, commentators, local news agencies and other sources that have been saying this for months and years. This self-important correspondent has "Iraqi intelligence sources" which have "disclosed to The Daily Telegraph" that Iran plans to move in once the British troops move out, backing the local militias in taking over over the political and security structures, undoing four years of work that has cost 129 British lives and billions of pounds.
Only the Iraqi army stands in the way of the murderous militias, writes Harding. And all the evidence we have seen so far is that, when faced with the militias, it is not up to the job, without very close support from the British Army. If, unlike the Americans, numbers are to be reduced and the rest of our troops are forced to skulk in their barracks, "on standby", then the outcome looks rather predictable.
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Thus writes Harding: "When it withdraws from the city the Army can only watch and hope, but it appears there are greater powers at work. Iran has always known Britain's presence was transient and is well prepared for the departure – and for the next round of almost inevitable conflict." This may be a statement of the "bleedin' obvious", but it nevertheless sums up the situation which, as Iraqi and American troops pour into Baghdad, points up the contrast and the dereliction of the British government's approach - to say nothing of the total retreat of the Conservative Party.
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