It's OK, they've admitted it

In truth, we had not prepared enough for the fanaticism of those who were prepared to attack oil pipelines, water supplies and attack their own people in order to pursue their extreme and fanatical views - and that is still going on.
Geoff Hoon, 23/09/05

This is becoming an increasingly popular strategy. Admit you've got it wrong, and then carry on as normal. Yes, I accept full responsibility, now lets put it all behind us and start with a clean slate.

I wonder if that defence works in a court of law? My client fully admits that without any provocation he cut up and ate the rest of his family. Cooked mind, not raw. It was an unfortunate incident and one he fully intends never to repeat. He has learnt a great many valuable lessons from this difficult event. My client would now like to put all this talk of blame to one side and get on with his life...

The real problem for Hoon and the rest of the government is that so many people predicted exactly the sort of problems which the government have now admitted thay were "not prepared enough for". Many people, myself included, opposed the war precisely because of concerns about this very issue. By that I mean both that they believed that there would be many problems and that the government wasn't properly prepared to deal with them.

Three years later, Hoon finally admits something which was blindingly obvious to many people long before the war even started. Well done Mr Hoon. How many people have died in the time it took you to work that out? It is, pardon me, a fucking joke.

And yet, the very same people are now making the decisions on what to do next. I suspect you can understand why I don't hold out much hope for a successful conclusion to our little adventure in Iraq.