Are plans to leave Basra a sign that UK effort has failed ?

Margaret Beckett has today announced that the UK may be able to withdraw from Basra in the spring of next year.

It appears that we will be handing over to the police, the very same police that UK soldiers on th ground say cannot be trusted.

A BBC report from less than a month ago from Basra has the following choice quotes:

"Over the weekend four Iraqi police officers were arrested by British troops after a search of their car revealed a roadside bomb.

The officers' story was that they had found the bomb and were disposing of it. That was not believed and they were taken for questioning, although they have since been released."

"A picture of Moqtada Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, adorns one wall of the police station. The Mehdi army, a militia controlled by Mr Sadr, has been widely accused of involvement in sectarian violence and attacks on British troops."

"The hard lesson that British troops have learned here - sometimes your enemy could be wearing a police uniform."

We went to Iraq to apparently remove a danger and put in a stable democratic government. Yet we will leave there with an extremist islamic group in control and the police being run by thugs.

Was the war really worth it ?