U.S. Army Spc. Dandrea Harris uncuffs women and children after soldiers handcuffed them with plastic ties during a night raid in Habaniyah Saturday, June 21, 2003. They had been unsuccessfully searching for an Iraqi man in an adjacent house who had recently tried to kill Iraqi informants working with the Army. Army officers later appologized to the family for mistakenly handcuffing them.
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This is just plain wrong. And Americans wonder why the Iraqi's just might be a little pissed off.

Mob killed British soldiers

UK troops 'killed by civilians'

Six UK soldiers killed in Iraq were shot by civilians after weapons searches in homes turned into a bloody showdown, according to local residents.
And Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Commons tension between British troops and Iraqis reluctant to disarm could have led to the killings.
[...]

The Brits have now given the locals 48 hours to turn over the killers.

Saddam had so little success controlling this region, he drained the marshes. I seriously doubt the British scare these people especially when a guerrilla army lies close by.

Considering that an armed mob killed the soldiers, exactly who would be turned over? What are the British going to do? Take 50 hostages and shoot them if the killers aren't turned out? Search more homes? Bulldoze a few?

Saddam resorted to genocide and couldn't control these people. He drained the marshes, destroying an area some believe was the original site of the garden of eden.

I doubt the Commons would call for the return of the poison gas bombers to control Southern Iraq. Besides, it didn't work in 1925, didn't work in the 1980's and wouldn't work now.

Short of blowing the town off the face of the earth and killing the residents, no one is going anywhere.
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The above is from dailyKos which is an excellent source of links and commentary on Iraq.

Powerless Iraqis rail against ignorant, air-conditioned US occupation force

As temperatures reached a scorching 45C (113F) in Baghdad last week people in al-Thawra, a sprawling working-class slum, unearthed hidden rifles and threatened to kill the manager of the local electrical sub-station if he did not resume power supplies.

"Some had guns and others threw stones at us, but I told them this was just a sub- station and we aren't receiving any electricity," said Bassim Arman, the harassed-looking manager. "Now I have to close down anyway, because employees are too frightened to come to work."

Electricity is vital to life in the Iraqi capital where the temperature can soar as high as 60C (140F) at the height of summer. Without it there is no air-conditioning, no refrigerators to prevent food rotting and no light in a city terrified by looters. The failure to get the electrical system working has become a symbol for Iraqis in the capital of the general failure of the American occupation to provide living conditions even at the miserable level they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein.

Asked about Baghdad's lack of electricity at an air-conditioned press conference, Paul Bremer, the American head of the occupation authority, looking cool in a dark suit and quiet purple tie, simply asserted that, with a few exceptions, Baghdad was now receiving 20 hours of electricity a day. "It simply isn't true," said one Iraqi, shaking his head in disbelief after listening to Mr Bremer. "Everybody in Baghdad knows it."
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Political fallout over Iraq rattling US

The political fallout from the unexpected hazards of occupying Iraq is starting to be felt in Washington, although it remains unclear who, if anyone, is to be held responsible for what is seen as inadequate postwar planning.
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