Damaging the U.S.-British Relationship

Ever since President Obama removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House, commentators have worried about an erosion in the special relationship between the U.S. and Britain. But a British inquiry into the Iraq war is casting new light on those ties under the Bush administration:

The end of “major combat operations” in May 2003 set the stage for two different kinds of conflict. There was the nascent insurgency in US-controlled central Iraq – though not, initially, in the four southern provinces occupied by Britain. And, quite unknown at the time, there was the growing battle between the UK and America, whose relations appear to have been far worse than anyone suspected.

The entire piece is worth a read. The upshot seems to be the British favored a lighter hand in Iraq and the Americans didn't. The rest, as they say, is history.

(AP Photos)