Brits to Withdraw 800 Troops from Iraq

Our British allies have announced a pending reduction in forces on the ground in the Sandbox.

The number of British troops serving in Iraq is to be cut by 800 to just over 7,000, it was announced yesterday.

John Reid, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that the reduction would begin when the next brigade moves to Iraq in May. He insisted that the cut was not triggered by the increase in violence.

“It is an operational decision not a political one,” he said.

With more than 235,000 trained members of the Iraqi security forces and 5,000 recruits joining each month, the country now had enough resources to conduct independent operations, he said.

The announcement came as many observers believe Iraq is descending into even greater chaos with the prospect of civil war.

Well, this certainly doesn’t sound like the course of action one would choose were one to believe the doom-and-gloom media’s prognostications of a pending civil war. One would anticipate a variety of reactions to such a situation, among them an increase in forces, a constancy of troop levels or a large-scale withdrawal, depending upon expectations and dangers. Rather, a small reduction points towards a phased handover of responsibilities, as has been predicted by the coalition leaders and appears to be the case here.

But despite the recent sectarian violence after the dome of the Shia shrine in Samarra was destroyed, the Ministry of Defence’s analysis was that civil war was “neither imminent nor inevitable”.

Mr Reid hinted that some of Iraq’s 18 provinces could be entirely free of foreign troops after the Joint Committee to Transfer Security Responsibility meets this month.

He said that the occupying forces were not about to “cut and run”, insisting that their commitment was “steadfast until the job is done”.

No, historical instances of cutting and running, be it from Viet Nam, Beirut or Somalia, are what put us in the boat we’re in today — our enemies are expecting it, playing every twist for its media value in an attempt to undermine our resolve. Indeed, it is their only hope, as they cannot withstand us militarily, nor can they deny that the Iraqi people are slowly embracing democracy and the Iraqi security forces are slowly but surely growing in competency and numbers. Time is not on the side of our enemies in Iraq, unless the defeatists among us get their way.