Home > The Magazine > Features

Thursday 4 December 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Cover Story

A bittersweet birthday

Con Coughlin

Saturday, 18th March 2006

On 20 March, the Iraq conflict reaches its third anniversary. Con Coughlin defends the decision to invade, explores the impact of Blair on Bush’s second term — and reveals what Condoleezza Rice thinks of David Cameron

And yet now we are told that the US-led coalition was so riven with arguments and disputes about how to prosecute the war that General Tommy Franks, the commander of the US-led invading force, nearly fired one of his leading generals within the first week of hostilities commencing.

This particular dispute was over how the Coalition should deal with the thousands of Fedayeen paramilitary fighters whom the invading army encountered as it launched its blitzkrieg on Saddam’s regime. General William ‘Scott’ Wallace, who was leading the army troops towards Baghdad, wanted to delay the advance to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.

Franks was adamant that nothing should impede the advance on Baghdad and the key objective of overthrowing Saddam’s regime. Once that had been achieved, the Coalition could concentrate its energies on mopping up the Fedayeen remnants, who would anyway pose less of a threat once Saddam’s regime had suffered a humiliating defeat.

Wallace’s supporters — drawn mainly from the usual anti-war suspects — would now have us believe that Franks’s failure to deal adequately with the Fedayeen threat during the opening engagements of the war was responsible for the bloody insurgency that has severely hampered the Coalition’s subsequent attempts to return Iraq to some semblance of normality.

Well, this is one argument that does not bear serious scrutiny. The pressure on Franks, and indeed the entire Coalition, to achieve a rapid victory was immense. When the advance on Baghdad was halted for a mere 48 hours to enable frontline units to resupply, the 24-hour news industry and professional doom-mongers such as Robert Fisk gleefully reported that the entire mission was on the brink of disaster. The military campaign was a war against Saddam and his inner circle, not the Iraqi people, and the sooner that objective was achieved the more likely it was that the fighting would stop.

I was in Baghdad shortly after the end of the war, and if it had been possible to conduct an immediate plebiscite of the Iraqi nation, it would have shown that about 99.9 per cent of the population — the same percentage victory Saddam used to claim in his presidential elections — was grateful for its liberation. The same percentage, it should also be said, would have registered their distaste at having their country occupied by a foreign power.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next page

More articles from: Con Coughlin | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

What I learned from the Somali pirates

Aidan Hartley

Aidan Hartley says that Somali piracy is very well-organised and efficient and is opposed publicly only by militant Muslims — who may yet seize power in Mogadishu

New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

Gerald Kaufman

Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

The law applies to Damian Green, too

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope

After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

Rod Liddle

The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore

Here’s how McCain can beat Obama to the White House

Reihan Salam

The acclaimed young Republican writer, Reihan Salam, says that McCain can win the presidency if he appeals relentlessly to the non-college-educated white middle class, pursues family-friendly tax reform and stands for global peace through American strength

America is still the nation whose eyes say ‘yes’

Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths

Very discreetly, Cameron is writing his first Queen’s Speech

Fraser Nelson

In spite of their commanding poll lead, the Tories are terrified of seeming complacent. But, as Fraser Nelson discloses, work is well advanced on a first-term plan for government in which education reform and a welfare revolution will be the centrepieces

Milburn: What’s it all about, Gordon?

Fraser Nelson

Alan Milburn gives his first interview since Brown became PM, and tells Fraser Nelson that Gordon has converted to Blairism too late. Something new is needed now