Surge For The Hills!
This would involve the present British force of 5,500 being cut to 4,500 - freeing up the troops for other duties, he said.
"Hopefully they will be home by Christmas," Mr Brown told reporters.
So it was 1000 troops home by Christmas, not 2000 as leaked last night, but the effect is the same, take the Tories off the front page, answer the burgeoning 'support the troops' groundswell from the right and shoot the Lib Dems anti-war fox. It's a (partial) victory for anti-war campaigners - if Brown didn't think troop withdrawal was a more popular policy than 'staying the course' he wouldn't be doing it. You can always trust a politician to act in his own self interest and Brown's evidently interested in having an election that will have no talking points at all and no one to mention Mr. Blair's little Middle East adventure. He doesn't do debate, conflict or old-fashioned electioneering, after all, he wants the Labour leadership 'election' writ large across the UK.
It's another break with Bush, too, Bush isn't remotely bothered by the astonishingly low level of support for the war at home, because he has no more elections to fight. Brown, with a clear desire for Blair-free mandate, evidently is, and pulling troops back from Basra, back from patrolling and ultimately back to barracks is going to help avoid the dreadful trickle of clearly pointless UK casualties during a possible election campaign. Except from Afghanistan, of course, but I think he'll keep that one going - public support is nowhere near as low as for Iraq.
Have you looked at the
Have you looked at the numbers being deployed to Afghanistan in the spring? Check out the Times online story.
This is a good sign - maybe
This is a good sign - maybe the rest of your soldiers will be home in three or four Friedmans.
With an election seemingly
With an election seemingly in the offing, wouldn't it have been fairly necessary to reach some sort of understanding with GW that there wouldn't be an attack on Iran during it?
Notice what he did there?ÂÂ
Notice what he did there?
Apart from all the 2,000, now 1,000, well actually 500 of the 1,000 were coming home anyway so that means only 500 more are due to get home by (which particular?) Christmas, Brown inserted the magic word 'hopefully'.
Well it worked with Northern Rock didn't it? First £100,000 will be guaranteed, then all the money will be guaranteed then - good news announcement No. 3 - £35k will be guaranteed.
I have every confidence in this man. A true politician for our times - right down to his well-bitten fingertips.
Notice what he did
Notice what he did there?
The Dear Leader did the same thing here. Send 30,000 more troops, promise to bring the same number home eventually (most of them were coming anyway), and call it progress.
Pleasingly it didn't take
Pleasingly it didn't take long for him to get found out over that one and the Brownometer swings a bit back to 'Rot The Bastard'. It was clearly timed to smack up the Tories, who are absolutely seething - Liam Fox earlier was almost apoplectic about this 'playing politics with soldiers'. Dr. Fox's voting record on Iraq shows him to be the usual Tory hypocrite.
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=1938&dmp=219
Even a drip-feed of withdrawals is welcome, since eventually there'll be too few troops to actually do anything there anyway.
Brown high on shrums and no
Brown high on shrums and no I'm not bitter or anything.
Not only was the 500
Not only was the 500 previously announced but it appears from Newsnight the 270 are already home, 230 on the way home and 500 in Germany were not in Iraq yet and are not now being deployed there. At least it always took a while to see through Tony's spin, he was very good at it. As in his budgets, small print and delayed tax increases, etc. it doesn't take long to see what Gordon is up to. If we get landed with another five years of this old Stalinist God help us all, the thought is deeply depressing as it would mean that the electorate is far too easily fooled.
It seems pretty certain that
It seems pretty certain that it will be a case of 'out of the frying pan and into the fire,' any reductions in Iraq will almost certainly end up being deployed to Afghanistan.
Iraq is considered as being a futile goal, with no possibility of it being stabilised. Much can be said that is the same about Afghanistan. There is no possibility of pacifying the south of that country, because of the nature of the terrain, and the dogged determination of an opposition, who are more than happy to die for their beliefs.
'freeing up the troops for
'freeing up the troops for other duties, he said.' WHAT other duties? Telegraph reported last week that Petraeus has asked our 'defence' minister for British troops to be re-deployed to the Iraq/iran border, presumably around Bush's new little 'border post'. While no reply was reported, the fact that the Thunderer even mentioned it is interesting. 'Snap' election in November? Troops home for Christmas? Then ship them out in January, for a bombing campaign against Iran in early 2008, Brown having secured his position beforehand for the next few years, and then taking his orders from Cheney and Co.
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