Posted on 07/11/2005 1:30:26 AM PDT by Skylab
Secret plan to quit Iraq
EXCLUSIVE By Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday
08:48am 10th July 2005
Cost reduction: Mr Reid says cutting UK troop numbers to 3,000 by the middle of next year will save £500 million a year
Britain And America are secretly preparing to withdraw most of their troops from Iraq - despite warnings of the grave consequences for the region, The Mail on Sunday has learned. A secret paper written by Defence Secretary John Reid for Tony Blair reveals that many of the 8,500 British troops in Iraq are set to be brought home within three months, with most of the rest returning six months later.
The leaked document, marked Secret: UK Eyes Only, appears to fly in the face of Mr Blair and President Bush's pledges that Allied forces will not quit until Iraq's own forces are strong enough to take control of security.
Look here too... Skip gossip links to more articles Memo in full: Options for future UK force posture in Iraq Mail on Sunday comment: Why we must not be rushed into pulling out of Iraq If British troops pull out, other members of the Alliance are likely to follow. The memo says other international forces in Southern Iraq currently under British control will have to be handled carefully if Britain withdraws. It says they will not feel safe and may also leave.
Embarrassingly, the document says the Americans are split over the plan - and it suggests one of the reasons for getting British troops out is to save money. Mr Reid says cutting UK troop numbers to 3,000 by the middle of next year will save £500 million a year, though it will be 18 months before the cash comes through.
The document, Options For Future UK Force Posture In Iraq, is the first conclusive proof that preparations for a major withdrawal from Iraq are well advanced.
The British Government's public position is that UK troops will stay until newly trained Iraqi forces are ready to take control of security. Less than a fortnight ago, Mr Blair said it was "vital" the US-led coalition stayed until Iraq stabilised, and Mr Bush endorsed his comments.
'Military drawdown'
Mr Reid's memo, prepared for Mr Blair in the past few weeks, shows that in reality, plans to get them out - "military drawdown," as he puts it - are well advanced.
It says: "We have a commitment to hand over to Iraqi control in Al Muthanna and Maysan provinces [two of the four provinces under British control in Southern Iraq] in October 2005 and in the other two, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006.
"This in turn should lead to a reduction in the total level of UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel by mid 2006.
"This should lead to an estimated halving in the costs of around £1 billion per annum. Though it is not exactly clear when this reduction might manifest itself, it would not be before around the end of 2006."
Mr Reid states that his proposal is not yet a "ministerially endorsed position" - or Government policy - though he clearly believes it should be.
Significantly, he underlines the serious impact on other Allied troops in the area now under British control, including 550 Japanese engineers rebuilding the infrastructure and 1,400 Australian soldiers: "The Japanese will be reluctant to stay if protection is solely provided by the Iraqis. The Australian position may also be uncertain."
Mr Reid says he will produce "further and more specific proposals" for the Cabinet's Defence and Overseas Policy (Iraq) Committee, which is chaired by Mr Blair.
But some British Army chiefs are opposed to Mr Reid's plans. One senior officer claimed the Minister had no option but to recall 3,000 British troops in October as Britain has already promised to send an extra 3,000 personnel to southern Afghanistan to replace US soldiers.
"The momentum for this is more to do with pressure from America and the woefully overstretched British Army than whether Iraq is ready to look after itself," said the source. "The timing seems very convenient.
British wait for American lead
"The view of most of our military people in Iraq is that we must not leave until the Iraqis are ready to cope, and it is by no reckoning certain that they are."
The memo leaves little doubt that the British plan to take their lead from the White House, where an increasingly unpopular Mr Bush is under huge pressure from the US public to bring American troops home fast.
The paper says it "sets out what we know of US planning and possible expectations on the UK contribution, and the impact on UK decision making".
It says Mr Bush's allies in the Pentagon and Centcom, or Central Command, are at odds with Army chiefs in Iraq, who fear it is too soon to withdraw in such large numbers.
The document states: "There is a strong US military desire for significant force reductions.
"Emerging US plans assume 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006, allowing a reduction in [Allied troops] from 176,000 down to 66,000. There is, however, a debate between the Pentagon/Centcom, who favour a relatively bold reduction in force numbers, and the multinational force in Iraq, whose approach is more cautious."
A Downing Street source said: "We have always said we will scale down our presence in Iraq when the Iraqis are capable of providing security. But we will not do it before then."
The Ministry of Defence last night confirmed the leaked document was genuine. Mr Reid said: "This is but one of a number of papers produced over recent months covering various scenarios. We have made it plain we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed. No decisions on the future of UK forces have been taken.
"But we have always said it is our intention to hand over the lead in fighting terrorists to Iraqi security forces as their capability increases. We therefore continually produce papers outlining possible options. This is prudent planning."
According to a BPIX survey for The Mail on Sunday, 52 per cent of Britons think UK troops should return home only when Iraq is a peaceful democracy, which could take years. Eighteen per cent said our soldiers should return immediately and 23 per cent said they should withdraw in six months.
And this sentence will not be repeated because it's at the bottom.
My opinion: The "leak" of this "secret" UK document is an effort to reverse the jihadist retreat into Europe.
Since President Bush gave a nationally televised speech on June 23rd firmly reasserting our commitment to Iraq, violence in that country has been way down. Both U.S. and Iraqi casualty rates are less than 25% of what they were prior to June 23.
The terrorists in Iraq know that they have lost and that we are not going to back down. So they have retreated to Europe and have shifted their violence beginning with the London bombings. They are trying to undermine our coalition in Iraq.
Someone in the U.K. is not happy about this. So, with a leaked document that contains a speculative contingency about one scenario that is not going to happen, they have created the false impression that we are possibly going to leave Iraq. This is the terrorist's dream, to get us out of Iraq before the democratic Iraqi government has developed its own working security infrastructure.
The objective of the leak seems to be keeping the jihadists focused on Iraq and therefore not going forward with any further attacks in Europe. Like I said, it's my opinion.
The reality is the pressure is not even mild. At least if you compare it historically to the pressure that forced our early withdrawal from Vietnam. The loss of viewing audience for the major alphabet networks guarantees that their brainwashing has not and will not affect the majority of the populace.
The reality is the pressure is not even mild. At least if you compare it historically to the pressure that forced our early withdrawal from Vietnam. The loss of viewing audience for the major alphabet networks guarantees that their brainwashing has not and will not affect the majority of the populace.
This is a load of cr@p.
LOL. Short and to the point.
This is no secret. It was on the news yesterday that we are preparing to dramaticaly reduce troop strength in Iraq.
There is no physical connection between Iraq and the London bombings. No Iraqi nationals with Iraqi passports are even being reported as having been detained. Leftist however will have no problems believing that this mythical connection actually exists. Yet historically they denied a connection between the 911 US attacks and Iraq.
The facts seem to point to a connection in the style of attack and the Spain bombings. In both cases these terrorists were not completely suicidal. Some of them apparently did not want their virgins. These could lead one to mythically concieve that terrorists (historically referred to as barbarians) located closer to the anarchist side of the Unholy Alliance were responsable.
There is however the possibility that we are winning the war on terrorism and our enemy can no longer afford to sacrifice what few soilders it can muster.
.. And a jihadi terrorist has a better chance of surviving in the U.K. than he does in Iraq. ...
You can see this way...
The more worrying scenario is that there are more terrorists got trained in urban warfare and they are able to "export" them all over the world.
Call me pessimist, but in my view there is no harm in overestimating the enemy as opposed to underestimating them and issuing optimist statements about winning the war against terror...
Tell this now to that hundreds of families in London... or might az well those thousands in Irak, whos members are just too regularly blown up in dozens when they try to get the only available job, the policemans...
I don't get it:
Reality speak: American and British logistics departments float some documents exploring theoretical scenarios involving the financial impacts of certain possible actions.
Lib speak: WE'RE QUITTING IRAQ!!!!
I guess it is not "secret" any more...
And obviously Britain, Spain, France and Germany on paper appear to be a much easier fight for the Jihadists. I think however they will be surprised by the response of the peoples from the British Isles. They are a much tougher breed then the typical cosmopolitan Londoner. For example: Scotland and Ireland never fell to the Romans.
Once we pull troops out of that part of the world we will
not get them back in short of a nuke attack on the US.
They dont have a Tube in Baghdad. Perhaps not even a double decker bus. Whoever planned this must have spent considerable time in London. In fact the primary suspect, with connections to the Spain bombing, spent a few years in London.
Tell this now to that hundreds of families in London... or might az well those thousands in Irak, whos members are just too regularly blown up in dozens when they try to get the only available job, the policemans...
I think every freeper wants the killing to stop. The problem and solution lies is in the hands of those doing the killings. Its only the Hate Bush crowd that is now trying to establish the connection between terrorist bombings anywhere on the planet and actions in Iraq.
When a terrorist group says it bombed and will bomb innocent civilians because it wanted their goverment to change its policies, those demands should never be considered as legitmate negotiations from a recognized state. They are in reality the ransom demands of a criminal group. As France and Germany may soon learn, new groups will continue to sprout with new ransom demands.
May 02, 2005 - Foreign troops in Iraq will probably start pulling out in large numbers by the middle of next year, Iraq's national security advisor has said.
In an interview on CNN's Late Edition, Muafaq al-Rubai said: "I will be very surprised if they [US and other foreign troops] don't think very seriously of starting [to] pull out probably by the end of the first half of next year."
Al-Rubai said the new Iraqi government was determined to quell violence in Iraq by the end of 2005.
"I think we are winning - on the winning course, there is no doubt about it. The level of violence is not measured only by the number of explosions every day, or the number of casualties," he said.
He added: "There is no shadow of doubt in my mind, that by the end of the year, we would have achieved a lot, and probably the back of the insurgency has already been broken."
Note: Even Al Jazeera gets it right once in awhile, LOL!
Oct 2003 - TIKRIT, Iraq – U.S. troops may have to stay in Iraq until 2006 to fully secure the country they invaded in March, a top U.S. general said Friday. Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, commander of the 3rd Corps, said there could be two more yearly troop rotations until newly trained Iraqi forces are ready to take over.
U.S. general says troops may stay in Iraq until 2006
BAGHDAD (AFX) - The Iraqi army will fully replace US-led coalition forces in the country by early 2007, once it has enough experience, Bruska Shaways, the director general of the Iraqi defence ministry said.
'By the end of 2005, we'll have fewer multinational forces (in Iraq) and by the end of 2006, it will be complete,' the number two official said, speaking of their withdrawal.
And FWIW, all the clamoring about Italy "giving in to terrorists" is BS too...
May 05, 2005 - ROME - Italy could be in a position to start withdrawing its 3,000 troops from Iraq in January or February next year following that country's elections, the government said on Tuesday. "The last step in a process outlined by the United Nations is the political election in December 2005," Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told a news conference in response to a question about the timing of Italy's withdrawal. "But the Iraqi government could request an additional month or two, and therefore we could get to January or February 2006."
The Italian pullout was in the plan all along.
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