Wonder how the conservatives will spin this. And the Republican Guard general, old uniform and all, bailing out the Americans in Fallujah, that is humiliating. Even in spite of the PR campaign to sterilize the guy.

Republican Guard - General - Saddam Hussein's personal army. Now sanitized. Amazing.

"Events in Iraq have been spinning out of control - and out of control of the spinners - so fast on so many fronts that the W word - withdrawal - is now being mentioned.

"It is certainly true that on three fronts the coalition is not doing too well:

* On the military, the insurgency has clearly spread from the few "former regime elements" and "foreign fighters" whom coalition spokesmen regularly blame.

Will the interim government be able to command the loyalty of Iraqis to a sufficient degree to bring the insurgency under control?
And the ability of the coalition to impose its own solutions has slipped away.

The bizarre situation in Falluja is a prime example of this.

The sight of former Republican Guard General Jasim Saleh appearing on the scene in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes and his old uniform to negotiate a security role for himself could hardly have contradicted the coalition's original aim of driving out the fighters from Falluja more vividly.

# The propaganda war could not have gone worse with the publication of the photos of prisoner abuse.

Whatever the origin of some of these photos, the damage has been done on the street.

The pictures highlight the problem that the coalition, having failed to make the case for going to war over the elusive weapons issue, is now failing to make its second case - the moral argument that it can bring the rule of law to a land without law.

# The third problem is political.

Images of alleged mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners have damaged the coalition
There is now only May and June to go before the handover of "sovereignty" to an interim government.

Yet this government will have no power. It will be able to make no new laws or change any law previously decreed by the Coalition Provisional Authority.