Ally's Timing Is Awkward for U.S.
By Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker
Washington Post
As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it "basically a good-news story." Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.
What national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley meant was that the British believe they have made enough progress in southern Iraq to turn over more of their sector to Iraqi forces. To many back in Washington, though, what resonated was that Bush's main partner in Iraq is starting to get out just as the president is sending in more U.S. troops.
No matter the military merits, the British move, followed by a similar announcement by Denmark, roiled the political debate in Washington at perhaps the worst moment for the White House. Democrats seized on the news as evidence that Bush's international coalition is collapsing and that the United States is increasingly alone in a losing cause. Even some Republicans, and, in private, White House aides, agreed that the announcement sent an ill-timed message to the American public.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it "basically a good-news story." Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.
What national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley meant was that the British believe they have made enough progress in southern Iraq to turn over more of their sector to Iraqi forces. To many back in Washington, though, what resonated was that Bush's main partner in Iraq is starting to get out just as the president is sending in more U.S. troops.
No matter the military merits, the British move, followed by a similar announcement by Denmark, roiled the political debate in Washington at perhaps the worst moment for the White House. Democrats seized on the news as evidence that Bush's international coalition is collapsing and that the United States is increasingly alone in a losing cause. Even some Republicans, and, in private, White House aides, agreed that the announcement sent an ill-timed message to the American public.
(Continued here.)
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2 Comments:
Wow … is this really progress ? The Brits plan to cut 2,100 now but as I wrote on my blog on January 18th, the plan was to cut 3,000 so they are actually going to keep more troops there than forecasted.
http://minnesotacentral.blogspot.com/search?q=coalition
This is nothing new, everyone else has been reducing troop levels for some time. The problem is that Southern Iraq is policed by militias and clerics. The central government may not really be in charge. There have been reports of increased adhernce to Sharia law (dress codes, etc.). The violence has largely been militia rivals infighting. In reality, this area is not the “land of the free”, but organized domination by militias.
If Bush is truly concerned of Iran influence, the Brits pulling out will only empower Iran. Further, this will embolden the Shiites and further stress the Sunnis --- the Iraq we know today will be a Shiite country with a strong religious input similar to Iran … unless it is split into three regions. The Kurds will want their own country. The only question is will the Sunnis freely immigrate to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, or will they stay and fight?
The Brits should have stayed just to keep pressure on Iran. The Murtha plan is to redeploy to Qatar or Kuwait in case anything happens in the region … why aren’t the Brits sending more troops to Afghanistan?
This is a major blow to Bush.
Here are excerpts from two articles in the UK's Independent that you may be interested in. webaddressed included.
In a comment entitled "The British Defeat in Iraq" the pre-eminent American analyst on Iraq, Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, asserts that British forces lost control of the situation in and around Basra by the second half of 2005.
Mr Cordesman says that while the British won some tactical clashes in Basra and Maysan province in 2004, that "did not stop Islamists from taking more local political power and controlling security at the neighbourhood level when British troops were not present". As a result, southern Iraq has, in effect, long been under the control of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the so-called "Sadrist" factions.
Mr Blair said for three years Britain had worked to create, train and equip Iraqi Security Forces capable of taking on the security of the country themselves. But Mr Cordesman concludes: "The Iraqi forces that Britain helped create in the area were little more than an extension of Shia Islamist control by other means."
[snip] ... the problem is not training or equipment but lack of loyalty to the central government.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2296829.ece
Some analysts believe the Iranian influence in Iraq can be exaggerated, and that the most disastrous British mistake was to invite the militias to join the Iraqi security services in an attempt to demilitarise private armies. Instead militias set up a "force within a force", using their uniforms to carry out killings, kidnappings and extortion.
[snip]
Operation Sinbad, billed as a five-month effort finally to "clean up" the corrupt and murderous Basra police force. British and Iraqi troops swooped on areas of the city in succession, and members of the Royal Military Police were placed in stations to get rid of the "rotten apples". As Mr Blair pointed out, the operation did have beneficial effects - the murder rate in the city fell sharply, for example. But some in the military nicknamed it "Spinbad", claiming that its effects were exaggerated and will quickly dissipate as British troops withdraw from the streets. Sinbad, the most cynical say, was little more than an attempt to bring Basra under enough control to justify the withdrawal, and the Shia militias will soon be free to resume their murderous activities.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2303009.ece
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