Britain May Scale Back Its Military Assistance

Britain may scale back its military contribution to a war in Iraq, particularly if America takes action in the coming weeks, according to senior British sources.

Tony Blair has intensified the rhetoric of war in recent days, but Britain has not yet moved any heavy equipment to the Middle East to back up its threat of military action.

This is in marked contrast with the United States, which has steadily built up its forces in the Gulf and says it will be ready to go to war in January.

Senior Government sources said Mr Blair has been reluctant to order the deployment of forces to the Gulf because "it is politically difficult".

The reasons include the "overstretch" in the Army caused by the firemen's strike, the Treasury's reluctance to release the money for a major deployment and the strong opposition in the Labour Party.

Well-placed sources said the Government is now considering the option of sending a much smaller force than originally envisaged, perhaps more akin to the British role in Afghanistan than to its contribution in the 1991 Gulf war.

"The United States needs us politically, not militarily," a senior British source said. "They can do this by themselves, with a few British troops for the cameras."

But any calls to reduce Britain's role will be tempered by the need to be seen to make a substantial contribution if Mr Blair wants to play a major role in shaping the post-Saddam era in Iraq and promoting a new Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

British contingency planning in Iraq has envisaged deploying a "light" armoured division of up to 23,000 men.

But the Government's delay in deploying troops to the Gulf means it is now virtually impossible for such a force to fight a campaign before February.

An early war in January means Britain would only be able to contribute lighter forces - such as the SAS, 16 Air Assault Brigade and the Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade - numbering at most several thousand troops, as well as combat aircraft and a naval force.

Military planners say the optimum time for the campaign will be before April, after which the Iraqi desert heat will make it increasingly difficult for Allied troops to fight with protective suits against chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The resumption of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq raised hopes among some British officials that the process would stretch out over several months and that America would revert to a policy of containment rather than "regime change" through military force.

But Saddam's refusal to admit that he has any weapons of mass destruction - a claim rejected as a lie by Britain and America - and his recent menaces to Kuwait suggest he is in defiant mood and is set for an early collision with the United States.

A senior Whitehall source said the Prime Minister still hoped to avoid a war. "Tony Blair has fought hard to go down the UN route and wants it pursued as vigorously as possible.

"If there is any chance of avoiding a war he will make every effort to seize it."

Britain has described its policy towards Iraq as a "paradox": the best way to prevent a war is to present a "credible" threat of force.

But its own tactics now appear to be undermined by Mr Blair's reluctance to commit forces to the region in preparation for a possible war should Saddam be judged to be in "material breach" of UN resolution 1441.

Tony Blair was a bosom buddy of clinton's. He embraced George Bush because he calculated that the U.K. simply can't afford to abandon the Special Relationship as a counterweight to Europe.

The question is how long making nice noises will be enough. If they don't do anything, people will start to notice, and that kind of damage could be hard to fix.

I think this must be a political problem, maybe with Labour, maybe with Europe. It's hard to see why the firefighter's strike would have that much effect.

Seems to me that there was one earlier article saying that the Brits wouldn't be ready--mainly because they hadn't been getting ready, although this has been coming for almost a year.

"Seems to me that there was one earlier article saying that the Brits wouldn't be ready--mainly because they hadn't been getting ready, although this has been coming for almost a year."

Yup. I recall an article about the bad condition of their tanks.

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