Michael Yon...Under Distant Stars

Michael Yon is baaaaaaaack!!

Greetings,

A new dispatch is published: Under Distant Stars.

I've just spent 10 days on the Iran-Iraq border with an excellent British "Battle Group" called 4 Rifles. We truly were living under the desert stars.

I am currently in Basra. There are reports that Basra is in chaos.

These reports are false. Basra is mostly peaceful; the British have not lost a soldier in combat for more than a month, and Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has plummeted in the last six weeks or so.

The British have NOT pulled out of Iraq or Basra yet, but from what I can see, their force reduction decisions are militarily and politically sound, and are supported by top American commanders in Baghdad.

The news reports I am seeing about Basra are incomplete at best, and largely inaccurate.

(Reminds me of Mosul during 2005.)

V/r,

Michael