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| Iraq |
| Britain planning Iraq pullout within a year |
| 2007-06-03 |
| LONDON- British military chiefs are preparing to withdraw troops from Iraq within 12 months in order to concentrate on Afghanistan, The Sunday Telegraph said citing a senior military official. A new timetable that would see a complete unilateral British withdrawal from Iraq by next May will be presented to incoming prime minister Gordon Brown within weeks of him taking over from Tony Blair on June 27, said the newspaper. Under Blair, Britain has consistently maintained that any pullout of troops in Iraq should be dictated by events on the ground, not a timetable. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 Not a surprise at all. The south of Iraq is indeed more stable, since it's almost all Shi'a. The big problem there, and one the Brits refuse to touch, is the Shi'a militas and hard boyz taking over, especially in Basra. Now should the federal government of Iraq survive, at some point it's going to have to deal with this. But it's lower on the priority list than thumping AQI, getting the Sunni extremists under control, making sure Turkey doesn't invade, and getting control of their borders. It'll be prickly because of the Iran connection. But whichever way that goes, the Brits won't be needed. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2007-06-03 13:13 |
| #1 Not really a surprise. Things are getting better in Iraq. *shrug* Until Britain decides to properly fund even the limited armed forces they have, they're going to have to make hard choices. And anyway, Mr. Brown never agreed with what he saw as the Iraq adventure. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-03 08:58 |