Troops out of Iraq next Spring

All British and United States troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within a year in an effort to bring peace and stability to the country.

The news came as defence chiefs admitted privately that the British troop commitment in Afghanistan may last for up to 10 years.

The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by London and Washington that the presence of the coalition, mainly composed of British and US troops, is now seen as the main obstacle to peace.

According to a senior defence source directly involved in planning the withdrawal, Britain is the driving force behind the scheme. The early spring of next year has been identified as the optimum time for the start of the complex and dangerous operation.

The source explained that troop numbers were expected to decrease slightly over the next 12 months but that the bulk of British and American forces, who make up 138,000 of the coalition’s 153,000 troops, would be withdrawn simultaneously.

... The source said: “Our presence [in Iraq] is now part of the problem. That is a situation which is now accepted by both governments. We are viewed as an occupation force even though, at the moment, we are in Iraq at the invitation of the government.

“Every time we go out on patrol we run the risk of drawing fire and taking unnecessary casualties. The security situation will not improve in the short term, whether we are in Iraq or not.”

From an article on the Telegraph website, quoting unattributed sources.

If this is right, the most ill-conceived, dishonest, expensive and pointless foreign adventure in modern times will end in humiliation as Sunni and Shia “extremists” compete to send coalition forces home as bloodied as possible. That may not be very bloodied, as these things go. But it won’t be easy for the government machine in Washington and in London to claim the much-craved honourable exit. “Obstacles to peace” cannot exit honourably.

After that, what are the chances for democracy in Iraq, or for any operational longevity of the Iraqi Defence Force which must underpin it? What is there to prevent the country splitting into its three warring factions? And if this isn’t the result the White House - and, poodle-like, Downing Street - foresaw at the outset, who will pay the political price after so much deceit and waste?

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 08:17 PM in War on Terror
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Comments:

Posted by Svigor on March 05, 2006, 11:14 PM | #

Wow, I hope this is true. I see no point to throwing good money (and blood) after bad. Personally I see this as the path least shameful, but I know many won’t.

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on March 06, 2006, 04:39 AM | #

Politics corrupt any military action-Isaw it first-hand in VN,and the Liberal news media lusts for anything negative.Bottom line-you don’t leave the field of battle until defeated! War is not a Nitendo game,where you can walk away and “play again”-thank God we had leaders like Patton and McAuliffe{NUTS] in WWII,or we would be speaking German today.Somebody has to be king of the hill,and thanks to Reagan,it’s us.If we fold again,even our “friends"will distrust us-we have a President who is comitted,a SOS who has more balls than any in the last 60 years[Stimson],and a Marine as CJCS. Keep the politicians and press out of the equation,and watch things evolve.

Posted by Amalek on March 06, 2006, 10:47 AM | #

The pullout tale was also leaked to the Sunday Mirror by MoD officials, and not very stoutly denied by the Pentagon. The non-get-out clause is that homegrown Iraqi forces might not be able to handle a low-level civil war by spring ‘07 (the current official evaluation of combat-ready battalions is that there aren’t any) but if the Yanks want out badly enough, they’ll declare pacification and scuttle anyway. And we Brits will come creeping abjectly behind them as we always do.

So the epitaph is being written. Under ‘right-wing’ (thank you, JJ Ray) GW Bush, the Federal budget is 50% higher than in the last year of Democratic spendthrift Bill Clinton, civil liberties are in the shredder, Medicare and Social Security lie unreformed and gobbling cash. America is split down the middle as in LBJ’s time, is more loathed by more foreigners than at any time in its history (under five years after it attracted a wave of sympathy) and is about to experience the worst trouncing a conventional army has suffered at the hands of guerillas since the Afghan militias handed the Red Army its anus.

And now the Middle East Crusade to bring democracy to Muslims has played itself out, for surely even baby Bush will not dare to crown his opus with an attack on Iran, while allowing India the same leeway to fiddle with nukes as the mullahs want. The USA has bigger fish to fry. It faces a colossal and entirely predictable, though long ignored, economic and strategic challenge from China and Japan—while being imprisoned by indebtedness to them.

It is rash to make sweeping historical judgements prematurely, but I find it tough to recall a president who has angered and disappointed so many different folks and left his country in so much worse a condition than he found it since… Harding? Grant? Bush Minor makes Clinton’s peccadillos look like virtues.

Posted by Phil Peterson on March 10, 2006, 05:35 PM | #

The Iranians must be lying flat on their backs laughing.

The US invaded Iraq to get rid of Iran’s number one enemy, Saddam Hussein. It then intoduced elections in which the Shiite majority “dethroned” the ruling Sunni elite. And now, the US is about to make a rather inglorious exit leaving the Iranians to take control of the neighbourhood.

If the Israelis were supposed to benefit from this, they certainly botched it up big time!

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