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Updated Tuesday, November 24, 2009 0:05 am TWN, LONDON, AFP

U.S. military in Iraq 'group of Martians': British chief of staff

Hostility between U.S. and British military leaders in Iraq ran deep, with one describing his U.S. counterparts as "group of Martians," the Daily Telegraph reported Monday, citing leaked government documents.

The top British commander in the country, Major General Andrew Stewart, said "our ability to influence U.S. policy in Iraq seemed to be minimal" in the first year of the conflict, according to documents published by the newspaper.

Britain's chief of staff in Iraq described as difficult attempts to communicate with senior U.S. military commanders, "a group of Martians" for whom "dialogue is alien," the newspaper said.

"Despite our so-called ?special relationship,? I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese," the chief of staff, Colonel JK Tanner, said.

The statements were made in official interviews conducted by the Ministry of Defence with army commanders who had just returned from Iraq during the first year of peacekeeping from May 2003 to May 2004.

Transcripts of the interviews, leaked to the newspaper, were revealed one day before an independent inquiry into the country's role in Iraq begins public hearings on Tuesday, with the aim of learning the lessons from the conflict.

British troops ended their mission in Iraq in July.

The probe will reopen debate over what remains a highly controversial campaign, in which 179 British troops lost their lives.

An army analysis published by the newspaper on Sunday showed Britain had no effective plan for what to do after coalition forces overthrew leader Saddam Hussein following the 2003 invasion.

According to Monday's report, General Stewart bluntly said that "incredibly," there was not even a secure communication link between his headquarters in southern Basra and the U.S. commander in Baghdad.

A U.S. decision to try to capture a key lieutenant of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a British-run area "was not co-ordinated with us and no-one (was) told that it was going to happen," a commander said.

Colonel Tanner said: "The whole system was appalling. We experienced real difficulty in dealing with American military and civilian organisations who, partly through arrogance and partly through bureaucracy, dictate that there is only one way: the American way."

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November 24, 2009 grryk@

Sorry, please don't say it was the "American way." It was the "Bush-Chaney way." After waking up from the political snow job that the Neoconservative PR machine pulled over the naive American people, most people wanted and still do want out.

We should exit Afghanistan too - another blunder.

November 24, 2009 cigars898@

grryk@ wrote:
Sorry, please don't say it was the "American way." It was the "Bush-Chaney way." After waking up from the political snow job that the Neoconservative PR machine pulled over the naive American people, most people wanted and still do want out.

We should exit Afghanistan too - another blunder.

Yes the Taliban are such nice innocent caring terrorists. We should just, "look the other way" and let the citizens of Afghanistan parish.
Should the US "look the other way" and let Iran make nukes? Oh yeah I forgot, Obama is already doing that. Who else is going to fight evil? Certainly not you.

November 24, 2009 crustsludgefreak@

If you whine about the "American way", then why follow the Americans around like little puppies? That’s definitely very self-contradicting...typically British.


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