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Has anyone heard anything about tony blair pulling our troops out of Iraq ?

I heard it on the radio while i was at the gym and bush is planning on sending 20,000 troops in.

From what I can tell Blair isn't increasing the number of troops in Iraq, and there are rumours that we might be pulling 3,000 troops out though that was from a radio news report so I don't know how reliable it is

Yeah saw it on the news this morning lads. Most of the troops (U.S) will go to Baghdad while about 5,000 of them go to one of the western provinces. What the troops are going to do is to go into certain areas where there is high clashes of sunni and shia fighting and all areas dominated by insurgents on search and destroy missions or even arresting insurgents if they can, clean these areas out and then hold them. The problem before was that they were flushing them out but they didnt have the support to hold them. Yes they put in the Iraqi police or army to hold them but they simply couldnt repel the attacks, not only that but the police is corrupt and has many death squads sympthatic to different causes, another example of this is bloody (literally) Fallujah. Its been said that instead of sending 20,000 odd troops, it should be more like 100,000 troops, that will the will definately be able to secure areas through sheer force, anyone who wants to battle it out with that may as well dig their grave early because theres no way all the insurgents in Iraq could kick that force out of Baghdad or force it move on - no way.

Bush also said that the oil wealth will be fairly spread amoungst all Iraqi's - the reason being because the oil fields are in the north (with the Kurds) and in the south (Shia), where does that leave the Sunni? So if it is not shared equally the Sunni will definately resist this and continue to fight, so this is why there is a plan to distribute the oil evenly.

On the british front, i didnt manage to catch much of their part but what i saw - i believe they will be scaling down their operations but there is a danger to this. I think a surge in troops or backup will only go to iraq if the insurgents in the Baghdad and western side of the country get their arses kicked by the Americans (which they most likely will do) - they will move south to our sector and start trouble there. If they do, our lot best f****** kick the living hell out of em and send them off this world or limping back home with boot marks and bullets on their arses.

Would anyone else like to add to that? It's just what i manged to catch off of Sky News this morning, i think (without looking) there is a section on their website explaining the plan. Check it out if you have the time.

EDIT:

AJtothemax wrote:Yeah saw it on the news this morning lads.

And ladies

the 20,000 more troops might sound like a lot, but as the reporter on the news pointed out, it only means an extra 6-8000 out and about at any one time. Whilst it will no doubt help, its hardly war winning troop numbers.

xcj wrote:the 20,000 more troops might sound like a lot, but as the reporter on the news pointed out, it only means an extra 6-8000 out and about at any one time. Whilst it will no doubt help, its hardly war winning troop numbers.

I wouldn't take everything you hear on the news to be pure fact, dont know whether you have or not.

With no doubt opposition as there is to everything (critics really p*ss me off sometimes), it is seen as helping the situation. I've said it before and i'll say it again - time will tell!

I saw a picture of some of the american marines in the news paper.

have they revised their helmets? my god they look like darth vaders in them or storm troopers or something outa star wars lol!

The Army of the Dark lord.

Bush's choice to send out 21,500 soldiers and marines has been said to be the biggest blunder in foreign policy since Vietnam by people in his own corner.

UK plans to hand over control of Basra in the Spring of this year, regional handovers of provinces in southern Iraq are already underway

Spetz wrote:Bush's choice to send out 21,500 soldiers and marines has been said to be the biggest blunder in foreign policy since Vietnam by people in his own corner.

UK plans to hand over control of Basra in the Spring of this year, regional handovers of provinces in southern Iraq are already underway

You're still missing the point - time will tell.

I think I read that quite a few people were planning to vote against it. Does it have to be passed by congress to send that many extra troops out?

AJtothemax wrote:

Spetz wrote:Bush's choice to send out 21,500 soldiers and marines has been said to be the biggest blunder in foreign policy since Vietnam by people in his own corner.

UK plans to hand over control of Basra in the Spring of this year, regional handovers of provinces in southern Iraq are already underway

You're still missing the point - time will tell.

I'm not sure what you mean AJ? Do you think extra troops would be advantageous over time?

We will only know if it was a mistake or not in a few months or years once events have unfolded I believe he means.
The president is commander in chief so I hear he gets the final say in whether troops get sent over. Congress gets a say in something just not sure what it is. Maybe all of them voting against sending more troops in will tell him where others stand on the issue and put pressure on his decision?

Spetz wrote:

AJtothemax wrote:

Spetz wrote:Bush's choice to send out 21,500 soldiers and marines has been said to be the biggest blunder in foreign policy since Vietnam by people in his own corner.

UK plans to hand over control of Basra in the Spring of this year, regional handovers of provinces in southern Iraq are already underway

You're still missing the point - time will tell.

I'm not sure what you mean AJ? Do you think extra troops would be advantageous over time?

Just on the comment about the policy about the Vietnam, i know its not your words its someone elses. Its not Vietnam, its Iraq and its too early to say what the outcome will be. If the Americans still had over the 300,000 in the country that they went in with, i dont think they would have slipped this far into violence, simply because there would have been more troops to stop things escalating this far.

Somebody has to step on these militas and death squads. The Iraqi's clearly cannot do that at the moment because they just dont have the resources ior the training, they have too many problems so they need help.

I remember back in 04-05 when the violence was kicking off between the American's and Al'Saqr's milita. The General in charge said he would 'crush' the milita - has that happened? No. Had the force been in place e.g. 300,000 - they could have dominated al-sadr, put him on the run and eventually have caught him. Lets not forget, despite having over whelming air power, and all the other assets, to make a vital difference you need people on the ground in sufficient force to make that vital difference. The current force has proved that it is not up to the job of taking all the militas on because of many other commitments and other reasons, so it needs help. One of the republican's (and i have missed his name but it was in the samr report that i was talking about) think's Bush should send 100,000 - that would definately be sufficient.

I think the real problem is that the congress doesn't want even more U.S servicemen coming home KIA or seriously wounded. However, if they dont increase the numbers and listen to all the democrats, then they are still left with the same old situation and to quote former General Stomin Normal in an interview for a BBC program about the first gulf war "we would be like a dinosaur in a tar pit" (and he was talking about what would of happened if they had gone on to baghdad after defeating them in kuwait) and that is exactly what has happened. If we scaled down numbers we are handing immediate victory over and all those lives lost would have been for nothing. Many people agree that even if we 'won' it would have all been for nothing anyway.

More troops will simply provide the coalition with ALOT more power to stamp down on the violence. Despite all of that, i think the solution remains an Iraqi one, and i think for Iraq to have a secure furture, the people of iraq must unite and say 'no' to the death squads and militas, once the people get on the side of the government, the coalition will obvsiouly back them all the way and clear up what needs to be done. Then, we'll see some progress in Iraq. But the government must go well out of its way to inform the people that if they do this, they must support it all the way so progress can be made. Unfortunately, the militas are winning the propoganda war, and they are also providing their areas with security that the government isn't offering. So, it is an Iraqi solution and the government need to realise that - even if it takes alot of pressure from us and the americans to do so, to point them in the right direction.

A bit of a mouthfull but its all relevant and a possible strategy.

Correct me if I'm wrong here; but iraqi citizens say that the militias give much more security than the coalition forces, but aren't the militias the major groups threatening the security in the first place?

Spetz wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong here; but iraqi citizens say that the militias give much more security than the coalition forces, but aren't the militias the major groups threatening the security in the first place?

Yeah, i dont understand what you're trying to say???