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UK to start Iraq withdrawal without ending insurgency

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 8, IRNA
UK Troops-Iraq Withdrawal
The British government has altered its terms for withdrawing UK troops from Iraq by signally that the process could start even if the insurgency continues.

In a speech to the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in London Tuesday evening, Defence Secretary John Reid insisted that the UK would still not "cut and run" from Iraq.

But setting out the conditions for an eventual withdrawal of some 8,500 troops still deployed in Iraq, he said it could start now when there is "a manageable level of threat from insurgents, be they criminal or political."
The other most important factors were that Iraqi security forces would only be "more able" to deal with this threat themselves, that local government bodies need to be effective and supported by central government and coalition forces could provide backup.

"Our purpose in Iraq has never been to create a mirror-image of our own nation. That would never work, and it is not what Iraqis want," the British defence secretary also conceded.

The UK government has been under growing pressure at home to set an early date for withdrawing troops from the debacle in Iraq, with some politicians warning that their deployment following the US-led war was counter-productive.

Britain has also been suffering from military overstretch especially with the commitment to increase its deployment in Afghanistan to 5,700 troops later this year.

"I believe the next twelve months are crucial for the Iraqi people and for all of us in the international community that are joined in helping to support them," Reid told foreign journalists.

He said that the purpose of the March 2003 invasion was to "give Iraqis the tools to build the kind of nation they want."
"It is not for us to say how that nation should look," the Defence Secretary said. "It has never, and probably will never, look like a western European country," he said.

He said "the time is approaching" when coalition forces can begin leaving Iraq but insisted that he would not speculate on numbers and dates because "to do so would be to invite chaos."
Reid further highlighted the change in British policy by warning the point at which Iraqis are fully in control of their nation again will "not be the point when attacks cease, when infrastructure is without fault, when there is nothing left to do."
"The day we leave will not be the final step on the road for the new Iraq. It will be the first. It will be the point when Iraqis have built themselves a fledgling nation beginning to play its part in the world," he said.

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