Number of UK Troops in Iraq to fall

[Anthony Williams]

according to BBC News:

The number of UK troops in Iraq is set to be "significantly lower by a matter of thousands" at the end of next year, the defence secretary has said.

Des Browne said it was hoped that local Iraqi forces would take control of Basra, in the south of the country, in the spring.

But a "drawing down" of troops did not mean a withdrawal because the Iraqis would still need back-up, he said.

The UK has about 7,000 troops in the south of Iraq, mostly around Basra.

Mr Browne restated Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's assertion that British-controlled Maysan province could transfer to Iraqi control in January, followed by Basra shortly afterwards.

But a handover did not mean a withdrawal of troops, he said.

"Even when all of the provinces are handed over, we will still be providing a force to mentor and back up the Iraqi army and police and to protect coalition supply routes," he said.

"I do not believe it is right to give precise numbers, nor to assume what the next 12 months will hold.

"But I can tell you that by the end of next year I expect numbers of British forces in Iraq to be significantly lower by a matter of thousands."

He would not allow "a single one of the 7,000 total British soldiers, sailors and air personnel to stay in Iraq longer than necessary", he said.

He also warned that insurgent attacks could rise in the coming weeks and months.

"As we move towards handover, perversely, the number of attacks on us may increase," he said.

what do we think? Is it about time that we starting decreasing our presence in Iraq, or is this a bad move that could further destabilise the country?

Ant x

[Mike Saville]

The country was destabilised the day we went in with no exit plan and many rival factions all vying for power in the vaccum that we were creating. Badly managed from the start, and it will turn to chaos whether we are there or not. There aren't enough troops there to prevent it from happening, and the US populace have lost the stomach for a fight.

[Rob McCow]

It seems that going into Iraq was like kicking over a hornet's nest. It was nice that the US's personal vendetta against Sadam was succesful, but everything else has ended badly.

If their job really has finished over there, then they should leave as soon as possible.

[Mike Saville]

Was it successful though? The WMD that we know Saddam had (cos Donald Rumsfeld and we sold them to him) were not found, and could be anywhere in the region. Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Iran- any number of places. At least we had a chance of controlling Saddam.

[Anthony Williams]

personally, my opinion is that we should never have gone in in the first place.

this war has turned into what is essentially another Vietnam - a situation where our (both British and American) troops are fighting a war that they don't know how to fight.

the sooner we withdraw and leave the various factions to battle it out, the better.

Ant x

[Rob McCow]

I meant that it was succesful on a purely personal level - he's no longer in power and he's been brought to 'Trial' of some sort. It appears that this was the only real aim of the invasion, to get Saddam out of power.

[Larry]

We should just get all our troops the hell out of Iraq and let them get on with it.

[Paul Clement]

I meant that it was succesful on a purely personal level - he's no longer in power and he's been brought to 'Trial' of some sort. It appears that this was the only real aim of the invasion, to get Saddam out of power.

But at the end of the day, the real aims have been oil, oil and more oil.

[Raston]

We did the right thing in Iraq, we stood up for freedom and we stood up for our values, and we should never be afraid to do that. We should never be afraid to do the right thing again, we should learn lessons from Iraq true, but we were still right to go there in the first place.

We should not be reducing our troop numbers though, we should increase them. More troops on the ground mean we can better deal with the problems, trying to run a country with 100,000 soldiers is a mistake-there should have been at least 3 times that number still in Iraq. Mind you we should have the armed forces a country like ours deserves to commit larger numbers. Its about time we had a government that respected the best Military personel in the world and funded them like they deserved to be, instead of wasting money on bribing kids to go to school or on an Olympics we don't need or want.

The soldiers of Britain, America, Poland, Italy, Hungry, Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and all the others should be proud of the job they are doing and anyone who thinks otherwise should be sorely ashamed of themseleves.

Several of my friends have been out to Iraq on tours of duty, and i am honoured to know them, and they are proud of the job they have done. We should respect their courage, skills and good work by not belittling them or talking them down. Or listening to a lot of the nonesense that the press likes to spin.

[Rob McCow]

trying to run a country with 100,000 soldiers is a mistake

But Why are we running someone else's country? That's an occupation, not a liberation. The Iraqi people have to take control or in the end there'll just be another middle-eastern country that utterly despises the West and with good cause.
I don't have any disrespect for the soldiers and their work, but it is the politicians who tell them where to go and it's their responsibility. In that sense, the army is just a tool.

[Mike Saville]

I think we have no reason to take pride in what we have done. We knew Saddam was a nasty piece of work when we helped install him, and we provided him with the means to subjugate his people when it suited. He was a dictator, but sometimes in tense cultural environments dictatorship is sadly the best option. Take a look at the former Yugoslavia. People called Tito a dictator (rightly) but look how many hundreds of thousands died and are still dying since his hand of stability passed and the country splintered into countless states.

The world is a much less safe place now with the removal of Saddam by an external force and we'll be feeling the repercussions for generations. Had we been serious about getting rid of him for safety reasons only, the only option was to use the UN and NATO to kick Isreal out of the west bank and offer the Palestinians support and protection, THEN we could have gone after Saddam with the full backing of the arab states, and it would be them policing it now and not us. But that would have meant Bush relinquishing Iraq to the arbs instead of his proposed puppet regime, and that would never do.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm sure the individual 'men on the ground' are doing their best in a very difficult situation, and they probably do deserve some praise - but that doesn't, to my mind, detract from the fact that we didn't really have any justification to go in there in the first place, and, as Rob says, we're in danger of becoming an occupation force. I wouldn't necessarily say that withdrawing wholesale will be good for the region, but there certainly seems no chance for peace there while we've still got troops there.

[Paul Clement]

I wouldn't necessarily say that withdrawing wholesale will be good for the region, but there certainly seems no chance for peace there while we've still got troops there.

Definitely not. The troops out there are always going to be a source of antagonism for some Iraquis. They are not necessarily looked on as liberators of a nation, they are seen by many in Iraq to be interlopers who have taken it upon themselves to instill their own view of democracy onto them. The only way it could get better would be by the removal of the troops, but they also need a government that isn't seen as a puppet to the Americans and British, and that means another election after the troops have left.

[Ralph]

The troops clearly shouldn't have been sent there in the first place. Now that Bush and Blair have made a pigs ear of it we're now left with a complex situation where having destabilised the country it doesn't seem right now just to make a swift departure. What annoys me most is that these two egotistic politicians will shortly be taking a back seat leaving others to sort out the mess they created. Churchill's famous line "Jaw Jaw rather than War War" I feel was never more appropriate in early 2003. With the full facts and listening to other world leaders rather than brushing them aside rational decisions could have been made.

I'm not sure how many British lives alone have been lost on this conflict - I think it runs into a few hundred? Thats a terrible price to pay when this could have been avoided. In addition billions of pounds have been thrown away when these resources could have been used for so many "positive" purposes back home. Politicians never tell us the total costs of their blunders in human lives and hard cash.

I do believe in defending our nation when we're under threat and I wholehartedly support our troops but this was a war without proper justification. It looks to me like another Northern Ireland scenario which will now go on for many years ahead so I think getting our troops out will be a battle in itself.

[Wayne]

But at the end of the day, the real aims have been oil, oil and more oil.

Absolutely. All this bull about western values & freedom etc.. has always been just smokescreen excuse to look after their real interests: Oil.
Anyone who believes that the western powers really gives a flying f*** about the people, or any of the other issues is simply deluded. It's always been about the Oil, & what the oil represents. Power/Money/Control.

[Raston]

If Britain and the US were just after oil, why did we got to iraq after only 2% of the worlds supply-in an area that would force the price of oil up?

Britain and US could easily have come up with an excuse to go to Nigeria or Venezuela which have a lot more oil than Iraq, would have been been just as easy to find reasons (Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, Marxist terrorist/drugs in venezuela) and they are both far enough from other oil producing nations to have avoided the oil price shock of Iraq.

We did not go to Iraq for oil, simple as that. The evidence is there to prove that.

Whether it was to get rid of Sadam or if it was to open up a second front on the war where the terrorists would have to fight our troops rather than attack our civilians is another matter.

I've even heard arguments to do with Saddams claim about ditching dollor stocks in favour of euro ones, which frankly is a far more believeable one than the stupid oil one people keep talking about. Iraq does not have enough oil for it to have been a worthwhile risk, simple as that.

[Mike Saville]

It's not about OWNING the oil. It is about how oil is traded. At the moment all oil in the world is traded in US dollars, so countries wishing to buy HAVE TO convert their currency into dollars, and those selling HAVE TO buy it in dollars and convert back, thus bouying the US economy. Saddam publically started a revolt against this, and was truing to convince OPEC and other neighbouring states to boycott the US dollar, and to trade in an alternative currency- possibly Euros. Had this been allowed to happen, the US economy would have taken a massive downslide and potential depression.

[Paul Clement]

Three car bombs have exploded in Baghdad, killing a number of people believed to be in the region of fifty. Things haven't improved there, and I don't think it's going to change for the better whether the troops are there or not. They should really pull them out now, for their own safety.