IN THE past three weeks, we at the BBC may have inadvertently given the impression through all our outlets that the Allied incursion into Iraq was a reckless political act which was militarily ill-conceived in every respect, unsupported by the Iraqi people, who regarded it as a ruthless invasion of their sacred homeland, and which was certain to end in total disaster. News headlines such as “Coalition Bogged Down In New Vietnam”, “Baghdad Will Be Worse Than Stalingrad”, “Blundering Coalition Forces On Brink Of Humiliating Defeat By Saddam’s Super-Elite Special Republican Guard” may have given the impression that we believed in some way that the war was not going quite as well as planned.
In the light of recent events, we now accept – albeit with a very bad grace – that the coalition forces seem for the time being to have got away with it, and that large numbers of Iraqis, though clearly paid by the CIA to do so, may have appeared to be not entirely displeased at the downfall of a regime which, whatever its faults, did at least for 30 years guarantee the stability of a potentially explosive mix of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, who will now undoubtedly plunge the whole region into a state of chaos which will threaten the peace of the world.
Whilst apologising for any confusion to which our reports may have given rise (and allowing for the fact that they could be broadcast only under monitoring restrictions imposed by the Iraqi authorities), we now realise that the only hope for future peace is for the hated Bush/Blair imperialist aggressors to be replaced at once by a French-led UN force of Russian troops of the type who were so successful in bringing peace to the Muslims of Groszny.