The Expectation Gap

John Reid gave a speech on Iraq to the Foreign Press Association on Tuesday evening. No offence to the foreign press but why the foreign press? Is the brave and bold defence secretary scared of a few British journalists? Perhaps he knows he's on a dodgy wicket and is looking for some extra room to manoeuvre. Comparing the Guardian report with the BBC one, it's pretty clear that neither had a journalist in attendance (there are two sentences near the bottom which are basically identical. Both start "Four other key...". They're clearly rewritten (or basically not in this case) off the same wire service report. To be fair, teh Gran does say it's "and agencies" ). Did he allow any journalists to ask him any questions at all, I wonder. Or was this a Bushesque hit and run, exclusively scripted affair?

Anyway, from the FT:

John Reid, the UK defence secretary, on Tuesday night set out the conditions under which British troops would withdraw from Iraq, appearing to lower expectations of how peaceful the country would be when that withdrawal occurred.
...

Although the speech was not flagged as a major policy address and Mr Reid has given similarly sober assessments of Iraq’s security in the past, the address was his most specific and, in many regards, most pessimistic view of how Iraq would look after coalition troops withdraw.

Something sarcastic about under-promising and over-delivering, etc etc... Morons.

Will they ever accept that they were grossly negligent when they misjudged the situation to such an enormous degree in their rush to war? Will they accept that people are dead today who would be alive if they'd prepared for the entirely predictable situation by coming up with something vaguely resembling a workable plan, and this is the important bit, in advance?

The occupation of Iraq was always going to be a hugely difficult undertaking. The fact that these idiots didn't realise that made it a whole lot worse. That is just one of the reasons why I believe all MPs should sign EDM 1088. Might I suggest you use WriteToThem to tell your MP if you feel the same way (probably best to check they've not signed it first obviously. 149 already have.).

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq