The US military was designed to win wars, not police countries after they're defeated. That's another way of saying that the soldiers sent into this war by the USA had not been properly trained for the situation that they were being put in.

Combat is only a part of what soldiers are involved in, and soldiers whose training stops at that are just not properly equipped.

To use the example that's come up recently in another context, it's a bit like teaching a pilot how to take off, but not giving the necessary training to allow him or her to land the plane. There is something seriously wrong with that kind of training.

I don't know how it is in the USA, but in our papers here we've had account after account of how Iraqis who rejoiced at the fall of Saddam, and were happy to see the Americans come in as liberators, have been turned around completely by the way they have behaved.

That's not to blame the ordinary soldiers - but it is to blame the people in command and the people who were responsible for organising training. But its the ordinary soldiers who get killed because of this.And then its the Iraqis who originally welcomed them who get killed in the reprisals.

Here's a quote from one piece about this from today's paper: An Iraqi intifada
: The worst damage, however, was done by hand. The clerics at the Sadr office say that US soldiers entered the building and crudely shredded photographs of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shia cleric in Iraq. When I arrived at the destroyed centre, the floor was covered in torn religious texts, including several copies of the Koran that been ripped and shot through with bullets.

And here is a quote from another piece, which makes some sensible suggestions:

The key task is to make the occupation invisible. The transfer of sovereignty on June 30 will mean nothing if coalition troops remain on city streets. "They behave as though it is their country and we are all terrorists," said one Falluja resident, angry that US troops almost invariably point their guns at people.

Put foreign forces under an unambiguous UN mandate, name an early date for their full withdrawal that Iraqis can believe, and immediately reduce the US contingent, which has shown it lacks the training and enough commanders who are able to conduct intelligent peace-keeping. If Falluja has not made that obvious, nothing will.