IRAQ: Whither Basra?

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It’s been five months since the British pulled out of Basra, the nation’s second-largest city, and left security to a police force said to be riddled with Shiite militia.

A British journalist and an Iraqi interpreter working for CBS were kidnapped this week by 10 armed men outside the Sultan Palace Hotel. The interpreter was released Wednesday, but negotiations for the journalist’s freedom were continuing.

The top British general in Iraq says the security situation in Basra remains iffy.

‘It’s fragile,’ British Lt. Gen. Bill Rollo, deputy commanding general of Multi-National Force-Iraq, said Wednesday while looking at an energy project in Anbar province with U.S. Marines.

‘I could see signs that it’s working,’ he said, ‘or that it’s crumbling.’

— Tony Perry in Haqlaniyah