Britain withdrawal of troops in Iraq

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Blair announces withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

News Link

 

The interesting question is why, and why now? A couple of possibilities:</font>

• Blair wants to have a more 'positive' heritage, too, when he resigns - which is iirc planned for the summer ('bringing the boys home' helps, not to mention that it probably prevents an overstretched British Army from breaking), or
• they are truly making progress in the Shia area around Basra, or
• rather, that the Shia have taken over and are now in an unrivaled and unchallengeable position of strength, and only occasionally shoot on the Brits to remind them of their position of vulnerability. Leaves as
• the most unpleasant variant, that Blair wants to have them out of the way when the US attack - which would give the US a free hand and explain the Bush Administrations cheerful comments on it.

We'll see. Could well be a, c and d.

 

Or
e. Blair gives up and let's the Shia and Suni sort out their own damn problem of trying to blow each other up, at least the British won't be in the way this time.

 

Of course, there'll still be 5k or so Brits in Iraq, through the end of the year. If anything, this is like the US's very slow withdraw that began in the aftermath of Tet. The UK is on the way out, but they'll be there for at least a year more.

 

He's reducing the number of troops and sending Prince Harry in.

Royal Rambo gonna finish the job?

 

To be fair Prince Harry is sending himself in. He wants to see action and frankly I can't blame him for it. Being a royal the common population view him as some spoiled little brat that doesn't know a hard day's work and he can show them otherwise by doing something that most of them wouldn't dare do.

At least you know there'd an intelligent officer going to Iraq for once. Even if he's a bit of a pot-head.

 

God, If Harry is your idea of "inteligent" we're all doomed!
B in Art and D in Geography at A-level (and there were some questions raised about who actually did his Art A-level)

 

I'm just glad, that the Danish troops will follow the English home. As a politician said yesterday we have yet another example showing that Danish foreign policy is decided abroad

 

I know very few people in N.I. that support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet local troops have to carry out US foreign policy without any benefit to ourselves.

 

Shaitan i wasn't aware of us having a foreign policy, as far as i can see we just do what america tells us to

 

Ragusa's D is probably the most likely reason, or else the Americans would be calling the British "tea-drinking surrender donkeys"

 

I think it is A, D, C with B unlikely.

 

A&C - tea drinking surrender donkeys
B - probably the same as above due to jealousy
D - most likely as the UK received praise from the US

 

Wayne White is a retired senior officer of the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He comments on the British withdrawal:

 

Shaitan, Equester: gosh, you guys too? I was starting to get worried

Seriously, I'm wondering when our troops would be out. The party that got elected was promising to bring them home by the end of 2005... but as usual, they're not very good on making good on their promises.

 

What a goonhead Blair is.

Solve this riddle!

 

Cúchulainn,
The British success is overrated. Their sector is quiet, yes, but that's more for demographic reasons and because they're from their Northern Ireland experience calmer and more careful, and thus have pissed off less locals than the US have.

Monty,
US utterances about the UK withdrawal express in unison delight and nothing but. That's the talking points, pure message consistency, a hallmark of Bush's presidency.
That means it's primarily propaganda. Direction, as usual, for the home front - everything's fine, and for the others a show of open agreement to gloss over any potential signs that could be understood as signs of weakness in the overall US position in Iraq. The Bushies think in such terms, as underlined by their comments on 'dissent at home in wartime'. It is an article of faith among them that all signs of potential weakness 'embolden the enemy'.

As for how happy the Bush administration really is, I don't know. Some random points:

The Brits haven't been 'aggressive enough' ('enough' as in 'Fallujah II') for the tastes of the hardliners in D.C. That has been a recurring theme over the last years. So they might be happy to have their way eventually.

Considering the consequences described by Mr. White, the British departure is disadvantageous as it leaves open the US southern flank, and creates a safehaven for Shia elements trying to evade the surge.

The US cannot afford to leave a vacuum once the Brits and Danes are gone, or they risk the security of their force's logistical umbilical cord. New Coalition partners to fill in can be discounted. Means the US will have to do it themselves; the Iraqi government forces can be discounted, too. If I understood Kagan's 'Choose Victory' paper right the idea behind the 'surge', or rather, escalation, was to concentrate all available forces on Baghdsad and clean house. The troops then bound in the south will be missing. The US commanders can't be happy about that. Positive utterances inspite of that are probably also expression of the the US military's obligation for an optimistic can-do attitude no matter what. So I expect the 'surge' to take that troop requirement into account. But then, maybe I'm just not bold enough, or for a change, too optimistic.

At the same time the Brits talk about increasing their presence in Afghanistan, but with less troops than they withdraw from Iraq. Means the Brits are interested in preventing their army from 'breaking', while still contributing.

[ February 25, 2007, 16:31: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Its funny you mention that, as my neighbour said you could tell who was defending various parts of France in WW2. If there are historic buildings still standing, it was the Brits, if its all 50's concrete hell, it was the Americans.