Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

News you only see in the foreign press: Britain to cut troop levels in Iraq.

The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.

The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.

…

The forthcoming 'drawdown' of British troops in Basra has not been made public and is likely to provoke consternation in both Washington and Baghdad. Many in Iraq argue that more, not fewer, troops are needed. Last week British troops in Basra fought fierce battles with Shia militia groups.

The reduction will take place when the First Mechanised Infantry Brigade is replaced by the Fourth Armoured Division, now based in Germany, in a routine rotation over the next few weeks.

Troop numbers are being finalised, but, military sources in Iraq and in Whitehall say, they are likely to be 'substantially less' than the current total in Basra: the new combat brigade will have five or even four battle groups, against its current strength of six battle groups of around 800 men.

A military spokesman in Basra confirmed the scaling back of the British commitment.

This ran in the Observer on the 19th. The Observer has fallen on hard times, and isn't as reliable as its stablemate the Guardian, which is one of the UK's best newspapers. Still, this story hasn't, AFAIK, been contradicted by the UK government. Yet, as far as Google and I can tell, this story has gotten no traction at all in the US media except for Salon, which reprints the Observer story.

You would think that our #1 ally beginning to thin its troops on the ground merited a small mention in your local paper maybe? Or 30 seconds on the nightly news?

Maybe if we issue a press release in a new font?

On this blog I have often suggested that GW Bush's relationship to the truth is somewhat opportunistic. So I suppose it's only fair to point out that today's news demonstrates that on one issue at least GW Bush did tell us the truth during the 2000 campaign: When push comes to shove (and when investigations into Halliburton make it an unlikely candidate for further contracts in Iraq) Bush does not believe in 'nation building'. Even when it's going to create more chaos:

Iraqi officials in charge of rebuilding their country's shattered and decrepit infrastructure are warning that the Bush administration's plan to divert $3.46 billion from water, sewage, electricity and other reconstruction projects to security could leave many people without the crucial services that generally form the backbone of a stable and functioning democracy.

…

But the move comes as a grievous disappointment to Iraqi officials who had already seen the billions once promised them tied up for months by American regulations and planning committees, consumed by administrative overhead and set aside for the enormous costs of ensuring safety for the workers and engineers who will actually build the new sewers, water plants and electrical generators. Of the $18.4 billion that Congress approved last fall for Iraq's reconstruction, only about $1 billion has been spent so far.

“Nobody believes this will benefit Iraq,” said Kamil N. Chadirji, deputy minister for administration and financial affairs in the Iraqi Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, which has responsibility for water and sewage projects outside Baghdad.

“For a year we have been talking, with beautiful PowerPoint documents, but without a drop of water,” Mr. Chadirji said, waving a colorful printout that he received from American officials.

The decision to shift the money, which had been earmarked for rebuilding everything from roads and bridges to telecommunications and the outdated equipment pumping oil, appears to signal an abandonment of the administration's original plan for putting Iraq back on its feet as a functioning nation.

They can't even spend the money they run around saying Kerry opposed?