The ironic thing is that, largely thanks to their experience in Northern Ireland, and lessons learned the hard way over the years, it appears that the British seem to be coping with this kind of situation a lot better, and with more appreciation of the devastating effect episodes like that checkpoint tragedy are likely to have on any hope of getting ordinary Iraqis to see the invaders as liberators.

Here is a (long) piece in today's Guardian reporting on this from the Gulf: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,926929,00.html - "Coalition divided over battle for hearts and minds":

Senior British military officers on the ground are making it clear they are dismayed by the failure of US troops to try to fight the battle for hearts and minds.

They also made plain they are appalled by reports over the weekend that US marines killed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, as they seized bridges outside Nassiriya in southern Iraq.

"You can see why the Iraqis are not welcoming us with open arms," a senior defence source said yesterday.

And it is clear that the checkpoint killings were not an isolated example. Here is what Sunday Times reporter Marc Franchetti's sent back - and incidentally, the Sunday Times has been consistently in support of going to war.US Marines turn fire on civilians at the bridge of death:

THE light was a strange yellowy grey and the wind was coming up, the beginnings of a sandstorm. The silence felt almost eerie after a night of shooting so intense it hurt the eardrums and shattered the nerves. My footsteps felt heavy on the hot, dusty asphalt as I walked slowly towards the bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay ahead.

Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks, blocked the road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some had caught fire and turned into piles of black twisted metal. Others were still burning.

Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery...

...One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps.

Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man who may have been her father. Half his head was missing.

Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi woman — perhaps the girl's mother — was dead, slumped in the back seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies...