Iraq: Growing optimism as insurgents falter

Signs that the insurgency in Iraq is drawing to a peaceful and satisfactory conclusion have become overwhelming as the number of forces deemed necessary to combat it has risen yet again. The news that 17,500 more army reservists are to be sent from other overseas US bases as soon as possible following the triumphant pacification of Fallujah has been hailed as a major breakthrough in the restoration of democracy to the sun-kissed paradise astride the Euphrates.

Military authorities in Baghdad describe their latest demand for more "boots on the ground" as proof positive that resistance to the occupation by US and coalition forces "as a good as finished" and that all that remains is a bit of light "mopping up". Indeed, history has shown that the Americans only request more forces when "the enemy is nearly defeated" — as was the case in Vietnam — and the request for a further 17,500 grunts demonstrates that the situation must be grim indeed for the so-called "Iraqi Resistance".

"There’s an obvious link," explained one British military expert sitting in a TV studio a good distance away from Camp Dopgwood. “Every time another five or ten thousand more troops are ordered in means the rebels are ever closer to exhaustion. All the signs are that they’ve been getting more and more exhausted for the past year and as the US military presence has increased by 50 per cent. And since most of these extra units get sent to the so-called 'Triangle of Death', that must prove that that place is probably among the safest in all Iraq.”

Meanwhile, back in Washington, a top figure in the controversial Project For A New American Infinity think-tank has set out how it’s going to be from now on. "We have every expectation that by the end of 2006, with the insurgency well on the way to be crushed, we’ll need a further 35,000 troops. The recent upsurge in violence is a clear sign of panic of the part of our opponents. In fact, if things carry on this way they’ll be so desperate by 2010 that the whole of the US military population will have to be located over there to mop up the last isolated pockets.”

Previously

• Squaddies express fury at US deployment plan
• British public out of whack on Iraq
• Iraqi prisoner abuse: New horrors revealed