Britain Bows Out of 5-Year Iraq War; US…No Timetable?

Britain bows out of a five-year war it could never have won, reads The Independent headline. This major story is unlikely to make it to the headlines in many of the US newspapers and American blogs. The grave implications of this development are either lost or are being intentionally underplayed.

“Britain handed over security in Basra province yesterday, bringing a formal end to its ill-starred attempt over almost five years to control southern Iraq. The great majority of people in Basra were glad to see the British go. ‘You can see the happiness on the faces of everyone,’ said Adel Jassam, a teacher. ‘It feels like a heavy burden has been lifted off our chests’.

“The fall of Saddam was highly popular in Basra, as it was in the rest of Shia Iraq, but while liberation was popular, occupation was not.

“The unpopularity of the British presence is underlined by the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the BBC showing that just 2 per cent of people in Basra believed that the British presence had had a positive effect on their province since 2003. Some 86 per cent said they saw British troops as having a negative impact.”

There are a few important points that emerge here: One, that the British government/democracy is responsive to public opinion within the country. Two, the government machinery is capable of taking a timely steps to prevent total disaster and resist pressures from a powerful foreign ally. Three, the British democractic system has safeguards in place to prevent commercial/corporate interests from hijacking the foreign policy.

It is inevitable that comparsions would be drawn between Britain’s recent troop withdrawl and the US administration’s continued insistence in staying put in the oil-rich desert – the two strong allies who blindly dug their necks in the hot desert for years and then aided and abetted in destabilising the sensitive region…becoming a party to the bloody mess that Iraq is today.

The Independent continues: “Britain did not suffer a military defeat in southern Iraq, though it lost 134 soldiers and never really established control of the city, the second largest in Iraq. By the time of yesterday’s handover ceremony it had 4,500 troops in Iraq, confined to Basra airport, whose numbers will be reduced to 2,500 by mid-2008.

“The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who was at the ceremony in Basra, said that Britain was not handing over ‘a land of milk and honey’. This is an understatement, since the Basra that Britain leaves behind will be controlled by semi-criminal Shia militias and political movements whose differences are often over carving up local resources….

” Britain stumbled into a small war in southern Iraq which it did not expect to fight and where its aims were always unclear. It is now stumbling out with very little achieved and its military reputation dented, after a conflict in which a victory could never have been won.” More here…

Meanwhile, the US administration’s cussed approach continues as it gets deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Here is The Washington Post story: “The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.”

Britain has finally learnt its lesson…When will the US learn?…Oh! When will the US learn???

Meanwhile the House of Representatives on Monday passed a $515.7 billion budget compromise “to keep most of the U.S. government running through September 2008 and position President George W. Bush to obtain a good chunk of new Iraq war funds he requested,” reports Reuters.

And…”as of Monday, Dec. 17, 2007, at least 3,895 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,168 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.” More here…

Also, there is an interesting write-up “Why US Can’t Leave Iraq” by Tony Karon. Please click here to read the article…

Finally, to read the fascinating history of Basra please click here…