Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 2, 2008 By John F. Burns
LONDON — Six months after Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined a plan for sharp cuts in the remaining British forces in southern Iraq by this spring, his defense secretary announced on Tuesday that the reduction had been postponed pending a review of the security situation in Basra.
The defense secretary, Desmond Browne, also used his statement in the House of Commons to acknowledge that British military involvement in last week’s fighting in Basra was more extensive than previously disclosed.
At one point, he said, British tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and ground troops were deployed to help extract Iraqi government troops from a firefight with Shiite militiamen in the city.
Mr. Browne said British involvement in that battle was in addition to other actions in support of Iraqi forces.
He said those actions included aerial surveillance of the city; low-level missions by combat aircraft aimed at reinforcing Iraqi troops by establishing a menacing aerial presence over combat zones; the use of helicopters that carried food and ammunition to the Iraqis; and medical care for wounded Iraqi troops at British combat hospitals outside the city.
Mr. Browne said the use of British ground troops in the fighting was ordered “in extremis,” suggesting that the deployment of forces from the British base at Basra was a last-ditch measure to save Iraqi troops.
Mr. Browne said nothing about British casualties, but his description of the firefight added new weight to suggestions that the Iraqi effort to crush militias loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the volatile Shiite cleric, had failed to dislodge the Sadrist forces from wide areas of the city.
The decision to declare a “pause” in Britain’s planned drawdown to a force of 2,500 troops from its current level of 4,000 was politically awkward for Prime Minister Brown, who laid out the plan in October.
At the time, the prime minister’s aides presented the drawdown — from a total of 5,200 troops in October, and 43,000 troops at the time of the invasion in 2003 — as a means of distancing himself from his predecessor, Tony Blair, and from a deeply unpopular war.
But as parliamentary opponents of the war suggested on Tuesday, what happened in Basra over the past week, in the first serious test for Britain’s policy of withdrawing its troops from the city last fall into an “overwatch” role at the base, carried potentially ominous implications for the planned move toward a total military withdrawal.
The shift in Britain’s plans also carried implications for the Pentagon, which has been weighing plans for the period after the additional troops deployed to Iraq by President Bush last year are withdrawn this summer.
American commanders have recommended a “pause” in further withdrawals while the military situation with a reduced American force of about 140,000 is reviewed.
But longer-term American plans have always envisaged a situation in which American troops, like Britain’s, revert to an oversight role at bases outside major cities like Baghdad.
In that context, Britain’s Basra experience, though involving only a fraction as many troops, is certain to be observed carefully for indications of what may lie ahead for the Americans, particularly in the ability of Iraqi troops to fight on their own.
The remarks by Mr. Browne, the defense secretary, suggested that as it had often before, the confidence shown by Iraqi commanders ahead of the Basra battle was not matched by their performance.
At one point, he referred to the “fragility” of Iraqi troops under fire, and the importance of having British troops nearby to intervene.
Mr. Browne said a new statement on British troop levels would be made by the end of the month after a meeting announced last week between Prime Minister Brown and President Bush in Washington on April 17, the first face-to-face meeting for the two men on Iraq since last summer.
Mr. Browne told the House of Commons that American commanders “have supported every step we have taken” in drawing down British troops.
But privately, some senior Bush administration officials have spoken dismissively of the British reduction of troops in Basra, describing it as tantamount to handing the city over to the Shiite militias.
In Baghdad last fall, American commanders drew up contingency plans for the deployment of an American combat brigade to the south, in case British troop numbers fell too low to intervene if fighting broke out.
Mr. Browne rejected suggestions that Britain might have to commit itself more deeply to the fighting in Iraq.
Withdrawal remained the objective, he said, “our clear direction of travel, and our plan.” But his other remarks suggested a recognition that further troop withdrawals might not come quickly.
Praising Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, for the lead he had taken in ordering the offensive in Basra, Mr. Browne said the Iraqis “have a plan to deal with the militias, but it will take a sustained period of time.”
April 2, 2008 By John F. Burns
LONDON — Six months after Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined a plan for sharp cuts in the remaining British forces in southern Iraq by this spring, his defense secretary announced on Tuesday that the reduction had been postponed pending a review of the security situation in Basra.
The defense secretary, Desmond Browne, also used his statement in the House of Commons to acknowledge that British military involvement in last week’s fighting in Basra was more extensive than previously disclosed.
At one point, he said, British tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and ground troops were deployed to help extract Iraqi government troops from a firefight with Shiite militiamen in the city.
Mr. Browne said British involvement in that battle was in addition to other actions in support of Iraqi forces.
He said those actions included aerial surveillance of the city; low-level missions by combat aircraft aimed at reinforcing Iraqi troops by establishing a menacing aerial presence over combat zones; the use of helicopters that carried food and ammunition to the Iraqis; and medical care for wounded Iraqi troops at British combat hospitals outside the city.
Mr. Browne said the use of British ground troops in the fighting was ordered “in extremis,” suggesting that the deployment of forces from the British base at Basra was a last-ditch measure to save Iraqi troops.
Mr. Browne said nothing about British casualties, but his description of the firefight added new weight to suggestions that the Iraqi effort to crush militias loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the volatile Shiite cleric, had failed to dislodge the Sadrist forces from wide areas of the city.
The decision to declare a “pause” in Britain’s planned drawdown to a force of 2,500 troops from its current level of 4,000 was politically awkward for Prime Minister Brown, who laid out the plan in October.
At the time, the prime minister’s aides presented the drawdown — from a total of 5,200 troops in October, and 43,000 troops at the time of the invasion in 2003 — as a means of distancing himself from his predecessor, Tony Blair, and from a deeply unpopular war.
But as parliamentary opponents of the war suggested on Tuesday, what happened in Basra over the past week, in the first serious test for Britain’s policy of withdrawing its troops from the city last fall into an “overwatch” role at the base, carried potentially ominous implications for the planned move toward a total military withdrawal.
The shift in Britain’s plans also carried implications for the Pentagon, which has been weighing plans for the period after the additional troops deployed to Iraq by President Bush last year are withdrawn this summer.
American commanders have recommended a “pause” in further withdrawals while the military situation with a reduced American force of about 140,000 is reviewed.
But longer-term American plans have always envisaged a situation in which American troops, like Britain’s, revert to an oversight role at bases outside major cities like Baghdad.
In that context, Britain’s Basra experience, though involving only a fraction as many troops, is certain to be observed carefully for indications of what may lie ahead for the Americans, particularly in the ability of Iraqi troops to fight on their own.
The remarks by Mr. Browne, the defense secretary, suggested that as it had often before, the confidence shown by Iraqi commanders ahead of the Basra battle was not matched by their performance.
At one point, he referred to the “fragility” of Iraqi troops under fire, and the importance of having British troops nearby to intervene.
Mr. Browne said a new statement on British troop levels would be made by the end of the month after a meeting announced last week between Prime Minister Brown and President Bush in Washington on April 17, the first face-to-face meeting for the two men on Iraq since last summer.
Mr. Browne told the House of Commons that American commanders “have supported every step we have taken” in drawing down British troops.
But privately, some senior Bush administration officials have spoken dismissively of the British reduction of troops in Basra, describing it as tantamount to handing the city over to the Shiite militias.
In Baghdad last fall, American commanders drew up contingency plans for the deployment of an American combat brigade to the south, in case British troop numbers fell too low to intervene if fighting broke out.
Mr. Browne rejected suggestions that Britain might have to commit itself more deeply to the fighting in Iraq.
Withdrawal remained the objective, he said, “our clear direction of travel, and our plan.” But his other remarks suggested a recognition that further troop withdrawals might not come quickly.
Praising Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, for the lead he had taken in ordering the offensive in Basra, Mr. Browne said the Iraqis “have a plan to deal with the militias, but it will take a sustained period of time.”