The Independent has an article up in which it is claimed that British military commanders have told Prime Minister Gordon Brown that “we’ve done all we can in the south [of Iraq].” According to them, nothing much can be done to improve the situation. It is therefore that they have told Brown that the best thing is to withdraw (prematurely).
Where the Army’s aims were – when the war began – “to bring stability and democracy to Iraq and to the Middle East as a whole,” they are now ‘an orderly withdrawal, with the reputation and capability of the Army “reasonably intact”, and for Britain to remain a “credible ally”.’
Obviously, the plans of the British army do not exactly make American officers and political leaders happy. A US intelligence officer, for instance, told the Washington Post already that “the British have basically been defeated in the south.”
This is quite bad news. It goes to show that although the surge may be working in certain parts of Iraq, the situation in other parts of Iraq is not improving and, in fact, even considered to be hopeless. If the US wants to bring order and stability to the south, it has to do it on its own. This means that the US should send even more troops.
Since the American people will not accept another surge, or most likely not, and the Democrats are in charge of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, I do not quite see how Basra can be saved.
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