* "British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal... Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003... Last week Blair's own envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned that Britain could be forced out if Iraq descends so far into chaos that 'we don't have any reasonable prospect of holding it together'." (link)
we are winning!

* "officials are bracing themselves for a new political crisis in Iraq next month, with what many regard as the inevitable rejection of a new constitution by a two-thirds majority in three provinces, sufficient to kill the document and trigger new elections.
The same officials believe that a failure of the controversial constitution - which Sunnis say favours the Shia majority - would require at least another year of political negotiations, threatening any plans to disengage." (link)

* "An Iraqi judge yesterday issued arrest warrants for two British soldiers, presumed to be SAS men, whose detention by Iraqi police and subsequent rescue by British forces in Basra last week has thrown an unprecedented spotlight on Britain's role in Iraq." (link) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article314977.ece
go read the article to see how fucked up things are in basra. even juancole mentioned the possibility that the two brit guys were maybe there to blow shit up in order to create more chaos.

* "Tony Blair will signal this week that Labour should abandon "urban intellectuals" who deserted it over the Iraq war." (link)

* "DEFENCE Secretary John Reid is planning to scrap the 25,000-strong police force in southern Iraq and replace it with a new military-style unit capable of maintaining law and order." (link)

* "In an interview with Al Jazeerah TV, the popular Iraqi leader Fattah al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly and deputy official in the Basra governorate, said that police had "caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market."" (link)
go read the rest.

and dont forget my basra photo essay