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UK to pull out of Iraq
Short little blurb, but...
Tony Blair to set UK troop pullout timetable for Iraq: BBC
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce on Wednesday a timetable for the withdrawal of U.K. troops from Iraq, according to a media report late Tuesday. Blair will make the announcement in the House of Commons, where he is expected clarify the details of the pullout, the BBC reported on its Web site. According to the report, Blair is expected to say hundreds of troops will return from Basra within weeks, and that more will follow later. Around 7,000 U.K. troops are currently serving in Iraq, the BBC said.
Interesting. It seems that the U.K. is doing what, I think, many in the US want, or think is appropriate.
Thoughts? Comments?
EDIT:
Found a longer artical in USA Today online....
Great Britain to begin pulling troops from Iraq
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, center, shown with British military personnel in England in January. Blair plans to announce a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, center, shown with British military personnel in England in January. Blair plans to announce a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.
From staff and wire reports
LONDON — Great Britain has told the United States it will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within weeks, Bush administration officials confirmed Tuesday.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by telephone earlier today about the withdrawal, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed this afternoon.
ON DEADLINE: Latest developments
"While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis. The United States shares the same goal of turning responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces and reducing the number of American troops in Iraq," Johndroe said.
"President Bush sees this as a sign of success and what is possible for us once we help the Iraqis deal with the sectarian violence in Baghdad," he added.
That sentiment was echoed by White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It's a success. It's not a failure, and it's certainly not an abandonment," Snow said of the plans.
"They're consolidating facilities in Basra and transferring some to Iraqi control. There's no diminution of combat capabilities. It enhances the flexibility for embedding and training the Iraqi army and police," Snow said.
Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, with 1,500 to return home in several weeks, the BBC reported. Sky News, a British satellite news channel, reported the withdrawal would begin in April.
Downing Street would neither confirm nor deny the report, which began emerging late in the night in British newspapers.
Blair will also tell the House of Commons during his regular weekly appearance that a total of about 3,000 British soldiers will have left southern Iraq by the end of 2007, if the security there is sufficient, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, quoting government officials who weren't further identified.
The announcement comes even as Bush implements a surge of 21,000 more troops for Iraq.
But Blair said Sunday that Washington had not put pressure on London to maintain its troop numbers. The BBC said Blair was not expected to say when the rest of Britain's forces would leave Iraq. Britain currently has about 7,100 soldiers there.
Blair has been with Bush from the beginning on the invasion of Iraq and has stood by the U.S. president as support for the war effort as slipped in public opinion in Great Britain and the United States. He said last month that he would report to lawmakers on his future strategy in Iraq following the completion of Operation Sinbad, a joint British and Iraqi mission targeting police corruption and militia influence in the southern city of Basra.
On Sunday, Blair told the BBC that the operation was completed.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in January that Operation Sinbad offered the prospect of a "turning point for Iraq, hopefully in the near future."
Treasury chief Gordon Brown, who is likely to succeed Blair by September, has said he hoped several thousand British soldiers would be withdrawn by December.
As recently as late last month, Blair rejected opposition calls to withdrawal British troops by October, calling such a plan irresponsible.
"That would send the most disastrous signal to the people that we are fighting in Iraq. It's a policy that, whatever its superficial attractions may be, is actually deeply irresponsible," Blair said on Jan. 24 in the House of Commons.
Blair, who has said he will step down as prime minister by September after a decade in power, has seen his foreign-policy record overshadowed by his role as Bush's leading ally in the unpopular war.
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Last edited by Tptmanno1 on Feb 21st, 2007 at 01:02 AM
Not surprising. With Blair resigning as PM, the troops weren't going to be their much longer anyway. No one in the UK supports the civil war in Iraq anyway.
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UK troop reduction a welcome catalyst, says Iraqi president
Michael Howard in Baghdad
Wednesday February 21, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
"The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, today told the Guardian that Tony Blair's statement on phased troop withdrawal in the southern city of Basra was "a welcome catalyst for Iraqi security forces in the south and elsewhere to stand on their own feet".
Mr Talabani said Mr Blair's announcement to the Commons "had not come as a surprise to anyone".
His comments came as Iraq's political leaders, who have been pressing the Bush administration to allow Iraqi forces shoulder more of the security burden in the country, welcomed news of the troop reduction.
The deputy prime minister, Barham Salih - who was praised by Mr Blair for directing a multi-million dollar reconstruction package for the oil-rich but poverty-ridden southern city, said: "British troops have helped liberate the people of Iraq from tyranny."
The troops are leaving because the plan is working: in the areas that they are leaving the Iraqi's are ready to assume control.
And when our troops pull-back and support (as the Brits will now do) at the end of this year or the begining of next year, you can jump up and down and say that Bush "caved in to pressure" or whatever, but you'd be wrong.
He's stated that this was going to happen for quite a while, nobody believed that it would.
History, (and the Iraqi people) will vindicate him.
Sometimes you solid "Lefties" crack me up... The initial plan in the war was to remove troops as areas became stable and Iraqi forces became able to hold their own. So what's the problem with Britain withdrawing 1500 troops out of a regain deemed "stable"?
Wait. Lets think for a minute "righty" despite how difficult that may seem.
You're telling my Blair says "Iraq is so stable we can pull troops out" While Bush says Iraq is so unstable we need 20,000 more troops and scholars say this is a civil war.
If the region was deemed stable, why don't they move to an unstable region? Because the US forces are going to be going there so thats all and good now?
Bullshit.
Iraq is not stable and this is a pullout. If this wasn't a pullout, troops would be redeployed to an area of Iraq that supposedly needs them and 20,000 more of my countrymen.
First of all, I have never voted for a Republican, so that should give you a hint to my political leanings... ([SPOILER - highlight to read]: it isn't Republican) Also, how grown-up of you to resort to an ad-hominem attack simply because I disagree with your views.
Not Iraq is stable across the board, the area where those certain troops are (Basra) is stable and has seen little action comparably speaking. And I agree with you that those troops should be redeployed instead of decommissioned, but that's Britain for you and in reality, they're playing a MUCH smaller role, 7,000 of their troops compared to how many of ours?
I'm not arguing that there aren't political reasons for this too as they're certainly always are; but the fact remains, the plan from day one, was to pull out and hand control over to the Iraqi forces as regions became stable.
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Feb 21st, 2007 12:59 AM
Thanks to Pittman for the sig
