Writing his latest op-ed piece in The Independent in relation the cessation of Britain's presence in Iraq, Robert Fisk says:
"One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday."
And:
"The British occupation force was opposed by an Iraqi resistance – "terrorists", of course – and the British destroyed a town called Fallujah and demanded the surrender of a Shiite cleric and British intelligence in Baghdad claimed that "terrorists" were crossing the border from Syria, and Lloyd George – the Blair-Brown of his age – then stood up in the House of Commons and said that there would be "anarchy" in Iraq if British troops left. Oh dear."
Read the full piece here.
Also worth reading is veteran journalist, of the BBC, John Simpson's report from Basra:
"People made a beeline to tell us what was wrong here.
The water supply has been cut off for four days, one woman told us.
There are daily power cuts, another said. That means no air conditioning, though Basra is sweltering now, close to 38C (100F).
Six years on, people here still cannot understand how two of the world's richest countries, Britain and America, could invade Iraq and not manage to improve the basic living standards of the population."
"One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday."
And:
"The British occupation force was opposed by an Iraqi resistance – "terrorists", of course – and the British destroyed a town called Fallujah and demanded the surrender of a Shiite cleric and British intelligence in Baghdad claimed that "terrorists" were crossing the border from Syria, and Lloyd George – the Blair-Brown of his age – then stood up in the House of Commons and said that there would be "anarchy" in Iraq if British troops left. Oh dear."
Read the full piece here.
Also worth reading is veteran journalist, of the BBC, John Simpson's report from Basra:
"People made a beeline to tell us what was wrong here.
The water supply has been cut off for four days, one woman told us.
There are daily power cuts, another said. That means no air conditioning, though Basra is sweltering now, close to 38C (100F).
Six years on, people here still cannot understand how two of the world's richest countries, Britain and America, could invade Iraq and not manage to improve the basic living standards of the population."
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