At the risk of seeming too macabre I’ve posted an Iraq civilian body count counter on the bottom left of this page. You can get your own here. I hope no one else is killed and I wish the Iraqi people luck in the coming months and years. I’m surprised and yet not surprised that we are going against world opinion to wage this unnecessary, wasteful, and costly war. For our own sake as a nation founded upon principles of freedom, I hope we fail utterly in our mission to occupy this country.
Military regime in place to run Iraq after Saddam:
According to British and American officials, the final touches are being made to the ambitious plan, which envisages deploying an entire civil administration to take over the running of Iraq, from healthcare to education and security.
The Times has learnt that most of the key posts in the future Iraqi civil service will be held by former American generals, diplomats and aid workers, who will report directly to the Pentagon.
The overall head of this de facto Iraqi government will be General Tommy Franks, the commander-in-chief of American and British forces that are now poised to invade the country. Until yesterday Britain’s role in planning for post-Saddam Iraq was kept secret, even though the special inter-ministerial Iraq Planning Unit was created two months ago. It is headed by Dominick Chilcott, a Foreign Office diplomat and former Royal Navy officer, who co-ordinates with officials from the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development.
A Foreign Office official said that the existence of the unit was not revealed because they did “not want to give the impression that war was inevitable”. …
British and American officials said yesterday that allied forces were bound by international law to take responsibility for running Iraq once the Baathist regime of President Saddam is overthrown. They insisted, however, that they would gladly hand over responsibility for civilian administration to the United Nations and ultimately to an elected Iraqi government once the situation had stabilised.
US officials denied that there was any intention of installing a long-term military “maharajah” and envisage a brief, “necessary occupation” lasting “months”.
Some Iraqis, probably drawn from exiled groups and figures inside the country, will initially be involved on a consultative basis. Later it is hoped that power will be transferred to an Iraqi Interim Authority.
Nevertheless, it is clear that General Franks will become a modern version of General Douglas MacArthur, who defeated and later ran Japan after the Second World War.