Britain's decision to pull out of Basra Palace -- the UK's last base in Iraq -- on Sunday is an unmistakable sign that the self-named Coalition of the Willing has been defeated. Try as he might, US President George W Bush cannot change that, not by paying a surprise -- and desperate -- visit to Al-Anbar province on Monday or by suddenly discovering new found military "success" in this part of Iraq. Bush knows that it's only a matter of time before the next US president makes the decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had to step down -- after coming under pressure from his public which resented his partnership with Bush in the Iraq war -- so that his successor could make the pull-out decision. Spain withdrew its forces from Iraq in 2004 when the Socialist Party's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero defeated pro-war then-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar and his Popular Party at the ballot box. While these are examples of the dishonourable exit these politicians endured -- involvement in Iraq will tarnish their reputations forever -- no one should be content with these grudging pull out decisions. They cannot undo the crime committed in Iraq. August was the second bloodiest month since the invasion in 2003. According to Iraqi authorities 1,805 people have been killed. In north Iraq, thousands have fallen ill with cholera. There are more than four million Iraqi refugees and more than a million dead Iraqis. Many more millions have been widowed, orphaned and maimed. Seventy per cent of Iraqi children are not in school. This once prosperous Arab country which had one of the best healthcare systems in the region, zero illiteracy and where women enjoyed equal rights is no longer any of these things because of the US-led occupation. Iraq has been turned into a wasteland. Who is paying the price for all this? Not Bush, Blair or Aznar. Not the British or American public either. The victims of this destruction of a country and its people are Iraqis. An end to occupation is the key to ending the daily inferno that is Iraq. But those who turned this country into a living hell must be held accountable. Sending the occupation troops back home should not be the end of this vicious and bloody war. It must be the beginning of a struggle for justice and for a safer world for future generations.
