Brits Will Scrap Basra's Iraqi Force They Created

The Brits have been having a tough time of it in Basra of late. And it's getting somehow worse. Now it looks like they're going to take a mulligan on the police force they created and try again:

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.

Reid ordered a root-and-branch review of security in the troubled province following last week's disastrous clashes between British troops and Iraqi police.

How that jells with Reid's plan to begin withdrawl of British troops by May 2006 isn't clear, though he did offer an enormous qualifier to his exit strategy, saying "if circumstances change I have no shame in revising my estimates." Proponents of this war have no shame indeed.