British troops pulled out 550 soldiers from the Basra Palace base on September 2, and redeployed them to the 5,000-man airbase in this city in southern Iraq. The withdrawal was small in number, but quite significant.
Within this past year, British troops had handed control of three provinces in southern Iraq to local security forces, and Basra is the last area remaining under British control. The recent withdrawal marks the British departure from all urban centers of Iraq.
It is reported that the British troops are busily training the Iraqi army and simultaneously defending the supply line from Kuwait to Iraq. However, they still function as "observers;" and might intervene again, upon Iraqi request, if a disturbance occurs in the southern part of the country.
From a comprehensive perspective, however; the latest British move is by no means a simple withdrawal in the tactical sense. Firstly, the British army had little choice. Its four-year presence in southern Iraq has brought neither regional stability nor normal life to the local population. Instead, the army became a target for militant attacks and 169 soldiers have lost their lives. A military expert criticized on Independence that the British presence in Iraq is an "absolute failure." It is perhaps out of the need to readdress this failed intervention policy that Britain decided on gradual withdrawal and the handover of control to the Iraqis.
Secondly, this is a scheme of "slipping out" by the Brown administration.
Gordon Brown has been focusing on domestic affairs since taking office in late June; and he has won popular support by remaining calm and resolute in dealing with terrorist attacks and floods. Now it's time to tackle the Iraq issue. In fact, dissatisfaction had long been running high over Britain's embarrassing role on the Iraq issue, and somewhat contributed to Tony Blair's resignation. So Brown must draw a lesson from this experience and take measures to gradually hand over control of southern Iraq to local authorities and the international community.
In regards to domestic politics, both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats currently out of office tend to support prompt withdrawal; and the public has long become bored of the war. Brown has to consider the next general election and a main objective is to get rid of the hot potato, Iraq, as soon as he can.
Finally, the withdrawal marks the true beginning of a British-American rift on their Iraq policy. Signs of discord popped up, despite Brown's claim that the move is "pre-planned and organized" and the hint from the Ministry of Defense that an agreement was obtained in advance from Washington.
Not long ago, two heavyweights in the Brown administration explicitly attacked the US policy on Iraq, and two retired British generals have recently followed suit. Major General Sir Mike Jackson, head of the British army in 2003, called the American approach "intellectually bankrupt;" while Major General Tim Cross, the deputy head of the coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, denounced Washington's postwar policy as "fatally flawed."
Now, before any noticeable loosening of Washington's Iraqi policy, the Brown administration has prepared for disentanglement. British media report that the number of troops in Iraq will dwindle to 5,000 in a few weeks. Control over the Basra province will be transferred Iraqi authorities entirely in autumn, and only 2,000 British troops will remain
By People's Daily Online
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