Blair’s announcement that 3000 British troops will leave Iraq by the summer was big news for the media this week, but what did it actually reveal that we didn’t know already? Very little indeed. This was all about whipping up favourable media coverage as local elections loom, and before this weekend’s Stop the War demo – leave it until after the demo and Blair would look weak.
Blair has spun the troop withdrawal all along.
As early as November 2005 the Guardian front page headlined: “Troops may start to leave Iraq in May”. It continued: “The government is aiming to begin a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq as early as the middle of next year [i.e. 2006], the Guardian has learned. … The Iraqi president said at the weekend that all British troops could be out by the end of next year. Mr Reid [UK defence secretary] was more cautious, suggesting that withdrawal could begin ‘by the end of next year’.”
There has been a drip drip drip of similar stories, faithfully reported by the British media. In November 2006 Blair said all coalition forces would be able to leave Iraq within 18 months. In July he said “significant” numbers of British troops could leave Iraq within 18 months (i.e. by the end of 2007). This merely repeated the British military’s plan made public in August that troops in Iraq could be cut “to between 3,000 and 4,000″ by the middle of 2008 — note, a bigger cut that the one announced by Blair this week.
The puppet Iraqi government has delighted in allowing the Western press to print headlines about imminent troop withdrawals. In June, Iraq’s national security adviser said he expected large numbers of US-led troops to leave Iraq by the end of this year, with the “majority” going by the end of 2007. “Maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid 2008,” he said. In November 2005 the Iraqi government said up to 30,000 US troops could be withdrawn as early as 2006. Ha bloody ha.
An entire year ago (March 2006), the Guardian reported that “British troops could start leaving Iraq within weeks, the army’s most senior officer in the country said today. The plan [paves] the way for all but a few hundred British troops to leave Iraq by mid-2008.” Déjà vu, anybody?
This week’s announcement allows Blair to leave office posturing that the UK intervention has had some success (see the FT’s comment, for example). Some British troops are coming home — this is a tremendous victory for the anti-war movement. But we will need to push hard to finish this shameful occupation.
Dave Crouch
