Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire

Blair tried to spin his announcement of a reduction of British troop levels in Iraq as some kind of victory by telling us that the situation was now safe enough for a handover to Iraqi control. Obviously this is contrary to the evidence coming out of Basra where troops seem to be largely confined to base and liable to be attacked as soon as they venture out.

Now we are hearing of another reason for the proposed troop reduction. Yep, they're going straight to Afghanistan. 1,600 soldiers leave Basra and more than 1,000 are off to Helmand for the Taliban Spring offensive. So how much of a victory does Basra look like now? Tony, of course, is still in denial about military overstretch despite what his generals tell him. Presumably it's just a coincidence that these two announcements came within 48 hours of each other.

Afghanistan is turning into a meat grinder for British troops with 48 killed since their deployment. And let's not forget that just under a year ago John Reid as Defence Secretary told us that:

There is an interesting video piece with Keith Olbermann talking to MSNBC Political Analyst Richard Wolffe about the British troop reductions in Basra, amusingly entitled The Blair Ditch project (via Chicken Yoghurt). The neo-cons are being characteristically ridiculous over the news of a partial pullout of Iraq by Britain. Condoleezza Rice is insisting that the coalition of the willing is still intact, stressing that some British troops will remain and neglecting to mention that Denmark is also abandoning the sinking ship and Lithuania too is looking for the life jackets. Australia is still loyal to the cause and Dick Cheney went over to remind them that:

This is, of course, one day after the news broke of British troop reductions when he said:

The spin never stops.