Paying with their lives for freedom

MAHMOUD Abbas is sorry about the killing of three British soldiers and the 23 people who died in the UN building. But most of all, he is sorry the British and Americans ever thought about coming to his country.

The 43-year-old driver says: "Come to think about it, there's little that the Americans have brought to Iraq. This is their democracy. But so much freedom has been taken away."

Abbas's view is reflected in the growing unrest among ordinary Iraqis. The problems of four months ago remain - a lack of electricity, poor supplies of water and petrol, mass unemployment and, worst of all, unimaginable levels of crime.

Hundreds of innocent Iraqis are being killed by trigger-happy American soldiers, anxious for their own safety.

Many people are prisoners in their homes, terrified of going out. Crime is the one growth industry in the law and order vacuum that has followed the end of the war. More than 40 people are shot dead each day. The central mortuary is over-stocked with bodies waiting for examination and the stench is unbearable in the 120F heat.

Kidnapping is the most popular game in town while rape, sexual assaults, hold-ups and muggings are running out of control

Worst of all, those who commit crimes do so knowing they're almost certainly going to get away with it because the fledgling 5,000- strong police force is so overworked it cannot cope.

Despite the great victory proclaimed by George Bush and Tony Blair back in April, Iraq is turning into a terrorist's paradise.

The President admitted for the first time on Friday that outside terror groups, including al-Qaeda, had moved into Iraq.

Three months after he declared hostilities over, Bush faces growing concern at home over the number of US casualties.

Britain, too, has been dragged into the mess. Yesterday's attack on our soldiers was the clearest signal yet that no matter what the British had done to win hearts and minds, events elsewhere in the country have overtaken their efforts.

Today, British soldiers are as vulnerable as the Americans.

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