Militia Take Over Basra Police Station

Oops! The British should know that the police in Iraq are controlled by the militias. The surge ain't gonna change that fact:

Shiite militiamen from the Mahdi Army took over the police joint command center in Basra on Sunday after British soldiers withdrew from the facility and handed control to the Iraqi police, witnesses said.

Police left the building when the militiamen, loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, arrived. The militia was still controlling the facility as of late afternoon.

Are we bad mouthing our allies now, are we? Bush(league) should have known that after his lap-dog Tony Blair left office that the British would start to leave Iraq. Just another detail missed by the neocon geniuses:

Britain has withdrawn hundreds of troops from Iraq, leaving a force of around 5,500 based mainly on the fringes of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Last Wednesday, former U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane, who was vice chief of staff at the time the Iraq war was launched in 2003, said Britain has allowed deteriorating security in southern Iraq to get worse.

He warned that American troops may need to plug the gaps if Prime Minister Gordon Brown withdraws significant numbers of British soldiers.

Another issue not addressed by the surge "strategy"--civilians being killed by U.S. bombings. The Iraqis are not going to blame the insurgents whom sought cover inside a house with innocent people in it. They will blame us:

The U.S. military said it dropped a precision bomb on a house in Samarra after 12 men who fought U.S. troops escaped into the structure. City police and hospital officials said seven civilians, including five children, were killed.

Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, spokesman for U.S. forces north of Baghdad, said a gunfight broke out when the 12 men ran into a house where U.S. troops were conducting surveillance. The 12 opened fire on the Americans, then escaped in a truck and were tracked by an unmanned drone above the city. They were seen darting into the house that was subsequently bombed.