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Blair Announces Withdrawal Plan
Britain will withdraw about 1,600 troops from Iraq in coming months if local forces can secure the southern part of the country, Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“The actual reduction in forces will be from the present 7,100 – itself down from over 9,000 two years ago and 40,000 at the time of the conflict – to roughly 5,500,” Blair told the House of Commons.
PM Tony Blair, flanked by Deputy PM John Prescott, left, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, addresses the House of Commons in London today. (AP archive)
LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Tony Blair was to announce on Wednesday the government will begin withdrawing thousands of troops from Iraq within weeks, according to media reports.
According to The Sun, The Times, Sky News and the BBC, Blair would say that the first contingent of about 1,500 troops will leave the war-torn country and return to Britain in a matter of weeks, and a further 1,500 will follow by the end of the year.
Some 7,000 UK troops are currently (BBC)
serving in Iraq
The Guardian said, meanwhile, that Britain will withdraw all of its troops from Iraq by the end of 2008, beginning this summer with about a thousand troops, citing unidentified officials.
While a spokesman for Blair’s Downing Street office declined to confirm or deny any of the reports, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed that Blair told US President George W. Bush Tuesday of his plans for troop withdrawal.
“We view this as a success,” Johndroe said, suggesting the British move was a sign of increasing stabilization in Iraq.
“They spoke about this this morning on the phone,” he said.
As recently as Sunday, the News of the World weekly said that Britain was preparing to cut by half its 7,000-strong contingent in Iraq in May, while the Independent on Sunday reported that the government plans to withdraw 1,000 troops by April would be postponed as the United States sent additional troops.
POLITICAL CALENDAR FAVORS WITHDRAWAL
The political calendar has also favoured a withdrawal — Blair is set to resign by September, with finance minister Gordon Brown the favourite to succeed him, and Labour is lagging behind the main opposition Conservatives in opinion polls in the run-up to local and Scottish elections in May.
A recent poll by ICM for The Guardian put support for Labour at 31 percent, nine percentage points behind the Conservatives.
Britain has about 7,100 troops in Iraq, most of them based around Basra. It is the second-largest foreign contingent of soldiers after that of the United States.
The country’s apparent decision to pull troops out of Iraq comes soon after Bush announced he would send 21,500 extra combat troops to the country, on top of the 138,000 US soldiers already there.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
