"UK forces suffer 100th Iraq death""A British soldier has died in a blast in southern Iraq - the 100th UK forces fatality since the 2003 invasion."BBC News Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 12:03 GMThttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4665020.stmThe failure of the US military to carry out its legal responsibility after conquering Iraq to provide immediate police protection and administration led to the decimation of Iraq and the current problems. I've just finished reading Matha Gellhorn's extraordinary book "The Face of War" (Granta Books, London, 1993). She describes the looting which occurred following the massive bombing and invasion of Panama on 20th December 1989 where the US military stood around and watched. The same thing happened in Iraq eleven years later. Had this lesson been learned, steps might have been taken to make certain that the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion did not produce chaos and destruction. Instead, the news was "managed." Martha Gellhorn writes about controlling the press in her brief introduction to the article she wrote about Panama the invasion of which she visited after the fact: "My article 'The Invasion of Panama' is not war reporting; it is post-war reporting. Vietnam taught the governments of Britain and America, at least those two, that it is dangerous to allow correspondents, photographers, TV crews to roam freely around a war. [She was denied re-entry to Vietnam after her articles about that war were published.] The grisly stuff they send back upsets the home folks. It raises doubts, moral questions, it is apt to promote hostile reactions to the war. In the Falklands, Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War, our governments have shown a fine skill in controlling and manipulating the press. . . . The press is treated to military briefings instead of finding out for itself. An accompanying officer or minder is always at hand. The result of this press management in four varying military events is that we have had no real press coverage. In the interest of 'national security' or any phrase they wish to use, our governments have decided to neuter the press in war time." (p 340)The by then 81-year-old Martha Gellhorn who had been covering wars for 53 years since the Spanish Civil War in 1937 visited Panama in August 1990 wrote about the failure of the US military: "I was slow to understand the catastrophe of the looting that ravaged the whole of Panama City for three days, beginning the day after the US night invasion of 20th December. The structure of the state was wiped out in the six hours of the main attack. US Southern Command, the permanent military establishment in Panama, had created a vacuum in civil order, but did not recognize that it was obligated to patrol and protect the city. The troops had no orders to do so. The people turned into mad locusts, swarming through the streets. At the time it must have seemed like the biggest wildest happiest drunken binge ever known, courtesy of the US Army. The hangover is painful; Panama has not yet recovered. 'I saw American soldiers sitting in a tank, watching,' said the hairdresser." (p 345). As one US Marine was seen on the TV news recently in the battle of Fallujah saying "We break things and kill." That's the extent of it. Had the reality of the invasion of Panama been reported as it occurred, perhaps behaviour would have been different by the invading US Army or perhaps lessons would have been learned. As it has turned out, the same has happened in Iraq with far worse consequences for a country of some 25 million people. It was destroyed and looted. Now it is a terrorist state struggling against "insurgency" with over 2,000 US troops killed and now the 100th British soldier has died in Iraq. What might have been the outcome if the media had been allowed to cover the war on its own and report what was actually happening without interference from the military? There was no plan to protect Iraq in the immediate aftermath of a successful invasion. The US military sat around and did nothing while the country was looted and destroyed. Now the terrorist insurgents are carrying on with this with devastating effect. It is highly likely that had the US military taken the proper action to "patrol and protect" as they are required by international law to do as the invading conquering force none of the current situation would exist as it does. It would seem logical that the US military should have been able to see somewhat into the future and act in the present after the invasion to protect the country to ensure its own security and the security of those other military personnel who participated in invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. The policy of the US military to hide everything means that it goes on making the same mistakes over and over. In the terrorist world in which we all now live this means that we are all at risk thanks to this policy. It is going to get worse before it gets better. That's the way these things always run their course.