THE BRITISH IN IRAQ….So why are the British pulling troops out of Iraq? Here’s what the LA Times says:
The British military is approaching “operational failure,” former defense staff chief Charles Guthrie warned this week.
“Because the British army is in essence fighting a far more intensive counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, there’s been a realization that there has to be some sort of transfer of resources from Iraq to Afghanistan,” said Clive Jones, a senior lecturer in Middle East politics at the University of Leeds, who has closely followed Britain’s Iraq deployment.
“It’s either that, or you risk in some ways losing both,” he said. “It’s the classic case of ‘Let’s declare victory and get out.’ “
This fits pretty well with several stories from last year that claimed there was a big push from both the Ministry of Defense and the Army Chief of Staff to get out of Iraq and put more troops in Afghanistan. They didn’t win the bureaucratic battle back then, but apparently they won the war.
