Blair Gives Iraq 12 Months to be Ready for Handover
From The Guardian:
Tony Blair will put pressure on the Iraqi government today to demonstrate that its security forces will be ready to take over from the British army in southern provinces within roughly a year.Amid mounting international concern over escalating violence, Mr Blair is expected to use today’s Downing Street talks with Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, to discuss plans for an exit strategy for British troops, with some ministers openly contemplating withdrawal inside a year.
In an attempt to demonstrate that the British army will not be bogged down in Iraq indefinitely, the defence secretary, Des Browne, said yesterday he expected that Iraq’s security forces would have the capacity within a year to take over from British forces, a point also pushed home by the Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells. Mr Howells said: “I would have thought that certainly in a year or so there will be adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces – policemen and women and so on – in order to do the job.”
Of course most of us realize that Iraq’s security forces will most likely not be able to enforce security: not now and not one year from now but we also know that sticking around for the sake of sticking around will not do any good either and that, as far as I can tell (and as I wrote a couple of days ago), the battle for Iraq already has been lost. Too many mistakes have been made. Reading State of Denial (many, many thanks to Joe for that wonderful gift) only confirmed these thoughts.
Anyway:
The talks come amid increasingly pessimistic assessments of the situation in Iraq from senior military and diplomatic figures. Yesterday Mr Blair’s closest former adviser on Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British ambassador to the UN, described the invasion as “a failure” and “a mess”. Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, and other senior officers have also issued bleak public statements in the last fortnight.Sir Jeremy warned: “There are only bad options from the coalition for now on,” and predicted that a solution to the fighting would require a “massive new effort of regional diplomacy” involving Syria and Iran – something that would constitute a huge change in US policy.
4 Responses to “Blair Gives Iraq 12 Months to be Ready for Handover”
If the British are going to leave in a years time will that be in step with a US withdrawal or are they leaving with the south in control of the Iraqi government and the US still patrolling the Sunni triangle? That prospect is not something I want to see knowing how well the Iraqi government would keep control of the south. A lot of stories coming out now on the Iraqi governments waste of money on arms procurements and infrastructure improvements, graft and corruption is rampant.
Grognard- I saw a report on 60 Minutes detailing a huge amount of waste and graft by the former Iraqi defense minister (among others). About 800 million slated for supplies for their army disappeared, and other supplies were bought that they didn’t even need. They also lost a lot of money by using highly questionable contractors. Their government is a joke-it won’t be able to control the South or any other part of the country once the coalition forces leave. If you take a closer look the entire venture falls apart.
Kim, saw that report, also noticed that most of the people involved have left the country and are living the good life.
Which means even more lack of accountability for our wasted taxes. Obviously the perpetrators felt that they could get away with it. I was infuriated. I’ve also read that the government is very slow to send the Iraqi army in when it needs to quell sectarian violence-as Balad illustrates-they couldn’t function without the Americans.
Other big problems: Iraqis are either leaving the country due to lack of basic services, or increasingly alligning with the militias. Also, the long festering hostilities between Sunni and Shia is resulting in a failure to commit to a power-sharing agreement. It won’t matter if we send 100,000 more troops in if that basic political dispute isn’t settled. I think the best option is to replace Maliki with a more autocratic leader, who may be able to restore order. Democracy isn’t working there.