Let's not get too complacent.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Iraqis have paid the blood price for a fraudulent war What cannot now be disguised, as US marines swagger around the Iraqi capital swathing toppled statues of Saddam Hussein with the stars and stripes and declaring "we own Baghdad", is the crudely colonial nature of this enterprise. Any day now, the pro-Israeli retired US general Jay Garner is due to take over the running of Iraq, with plans to replace the Iraqi dinar with the dollar, parcel out contracts to US companies and set the free market parameters for the future "interim Iraqi administration".

Shashi Tharoor, UN under secretary-general warned Britain and the US against treating Iraq as "some sort of treasure chest to be divvied up", but the Pentagon, which is calling the shots, isn't listening. Its favoured Iraqi protege, Ahmed Chalabi - scion of the old Iraqi ruling class who last set foot in Baghdad 45 years ago - was flown into Nasiriya by the Americans at the weekend and, almost unbelievably for someone convicted of fraud and embezzlement, is being lined up as an adviser to the finance ministry.