Glen Rangwala / The Independent

June 27, 2004

Tony Blair's message to the Iraqi people, 8 April 2003 promised: "Coalition forces will make the country safe, and will work with the United Nations to help Iraq get back on its feet." What happened: Coalition military leaders now recognise that a substantial sector of the Iraqi population has been engaged in fighting an insurgency against them from the start of the occupation. At first, it was thought that stability could be achieved simply by taking out the leaders of anti-coalition paramilitary groups in "mopping-up operations". From September 2003, however, the occupation authorities began to think of the violence as a broadly based insurgency...

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