"But despite this undoubted achievement, Mr Hoon will find it difficult today to portray the performance of the marines as a triumph of British and American military planning. The troops are coming home. But al-Qaida is still out there."

The reality seems to be that besides deposing the Taliban there hasn't been much else accomplished.

It's been easy to see that OBL is still out there, terrorism is still a threat, we bombed allies and civilians a bunch, and not much else seemed to occur.

And now, at least one positive report has been deemed untrue.

It's also clear no one will admit this has been pretty much a failure, if the goal was to reduce terrorism. If there was just the goal of a puppet regime in Afghanistan, that's worked, so far.

Arf