Britain to withdraw troops in 'coming months'Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, center, shown with British military personnel in England in January. Blair announced a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.
BLAIR ADDRESS EXCERPTS
Excerpts from Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement on Iraq to Britain's parliament Wednesday:
"There can be no debate about the rights and wrongs of what is happening in Iraq today. The desire for democracy is good. The attempt to destroy it through terrorism is evil. Unfortunately, that's not the question. The question is not should we, but can we defeat this evil? Do we have a plan to succeed?"
"Since the outset our plan, agreed by Iraq and the U.N., has been to build up Iraqi capability in order to let them take control of their own destiny. As they would step up, we would, increasingly, step back."
"In normal circumstances, the progress would be considered remarkable. ... But these are not normal circumstances. The Iraqi forces have often proved valiant. But the various forces against them have also redoubled their efforts. In particular in and around Baghdad, where 80-90% of the violence is centered, they have engaged in a systematic attempt to bring the city to chaos. It is the capital of Iraq. Its strategic importance is fundamental. There has been an orgy of terrorism unleashed upon it in order to crush any possibility of it functioning."
"It doesn't much matter if elsewhere in Iraq -- not least in Basra -- change is happening. If Baghdad cannot be secured, the future of the country is in peril. The enemies of Iraq understand that. We understand it."
"There can be only one purpose in Iraq: to support the government and people of the country to attain the necessary capability to run their own affairs as a sovereign, independent state."
"The actual reduction in forces (in Basra) will be from the present 7,100 -- itself down from over 9,000 two years ago and 40,000 at the time of the conflict -- to roughly 5,500 ... Over time and depending naturally on progress and the capability of the (Iraq security forces), we will be able to draw down further, possibly to below 5,000 once the Basra Palace site has been transferred to the Iraqis in late summer. ... The U.K. military presence will continue into 2008 for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do."
"The speed at which this happens depends, of course, in part on what we do, what the Iraqi authorities themselves do; but also on the attitude of those we are, together, fighting. Their claim to be fighting for the liberation of their country is a palpable lie. They know perfectly well that if they stopped the terror, agreed to let the U.N. democratic process work and allowed the natural talent and wealth of the country to emerge, Iraq would prosper. We would be able to leave. It is precisely their intent to eliminate such a possibility."
Source: Associated Press
By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that Britain will pull 1,600 of its 7,100 troops in Iraq out of the southern part of the country in coming months.
ON DEADLINE: How Fleet Street is covering the news of Brits and Danes pulling out | AUDIO
The number could be cut even more — to below 5,000 — by August if Iraqi forces demonstrate that they have secured the southern part of the country, he said.
However, Blair said, British forces would remain in Iraq into next year or "for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do."
This is the first time that Britain has set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, although Blair has said that British troops would pull out when Iraqi army and police were able to maintain order themselves. Britain had 9,000 troops in Iraq two years ago.
The British withdrawal comes as President Bush is sending 21,500 U.S. troops to try to secure the violence-racked area around Baghdad farther north.
In Najaf, a Shiite holy city about 95 miles south of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint today, killing at least 13 people. Najaf is in the spiritual heartland of the militia factions led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Blair and Bush talked by secure video link Tuesday about the proposals, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. Bush views Britain's troop cutbacks as "a sign of success" in Iraq, he said.
Presidential spokesman Tony Snow, on a trip with Bush to Tennessee, said Britain's decision was not made on a timeline of the sort the president has rejected for American troops. "What you had is progress first, and then the removal," Snow said.
"The president's made clear all along, we want to move as rapidly as we can to build capability on the part of the Iraqis so they can in fact assume, first, primary responsibility and then eventually sole responsibility," he said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there was no thought that the British were abandoning the United States when it is struggling to send thousands more troops into Iraq. He said the British "have been steadfast allies in Iraq and they will continue to be."
Blair's announcement, made in a noon-hour speech in the House of Commons, followed an earlier announcement by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that Denmark was withdrawing its 460 troops from southern Iraq.
The Danish force, which has been under British command, will pull out in August, Rasmussen said.
Lithuania, too, said it was "seriously considering" withdrawing its 53 troops from Iraq, a government spokeswoman said.
In Tokyo, Vice President Dick Cheney called Blair's announcement good news. "I look at it and see it is actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well," Cheney told ABC News.
In Berlin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that the U.S.-led coalition of international forces in Iraq is still intact.
"The coalition remains intact and in fact the British will have thousands of soldiers deployed in Iraq in the south," she said at a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "It is the plan that as it is possible to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis, that coalition forces would no longer be needed in those circumstances," she said.
Blair said the withdrawal was possible because the Iraqi army and police have increasingly demonstrated that they can secure and patrol most of the Basra area. That allows British troops to pull back into a supporting role and allow the size of force to be reduced.
On Tuesday, Britain handed over control of an Iraqi army division based in Basra. The 10th Iraqi Army Division, which was trained by British troops, now takes its orders from Iraqi military commanders in Baghdad.
Violence in Basra has decreased in recent months. Basra province is experiencing 5 attacks a day, opposed to nearly 40 a day for Baghdad, according to the latest Defense Department quarterly report.The biggest threat in Basra, and the south in general, is escalating Shia-on-Shia violence between rival Shia militias.
British defense analyst Eric Grove saw both military and political pressure behind the announcement, which he says represents the beginning of the end of British military presence in Iraq.
The Ministry of Defense, he said, is under pressure with troops deployed both in Iraq and Afghanistan. To ease it, military commanders have pushed hard in the last year to build up and train Iraqi army and police so that it could draw down its troops there and reinforce those in Afghanistan.
"We do want to run down the commitment (in Iraq), if for no other reason than our commitment in Afghanistan," said Grove, director of the Center for International Security and War Studies at the University of Salford in Manchester.
At the same time, he said, Blair would like to draw down the number of troops in Iraq before elections in Scotland in May and before his likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, takes over.
Brown has said he would like to see troop levels in Iraq reduced by several thousand by the end of this year.
Contributing: The Associated Press
