Britain, U.S.A, struggle to find exit from Iraq
Date: Sunday, October 22 2006
Topic: Military, Security, and Defence
"A greater war crime is difficult to imagine than invading a country that posed no threat and then destroying it. Until those responsible are forced to recognise their culpability and are held to account, this matter cannot rest." --from the article below, in a Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Herald
Sunday Herald - 22 October 2006
Lest we forget: an arresting case to hold leaders accountable
Iain Macwhirter Britain and US struggle to find a retreat from Iraq
So that’s it then. We’re pulling out of Iraq within the next, ooh, 18 months or so, before we become a “provocation”. So said the prime minister last week, echoing the dramatic change of tone from the White House.
Funny, but it seems only yesterday that Tony Blair was castigating advocates of withdrawal as disloyal defeatists and appeasers of terrorism. Now we are handing large areas of Iraq, like Amarah, over to people like Moqtada al-Sadr, one of the blackest terrorists in the Middle East.
Of course we won’t cut and run. We’ll stay the course, protect democracy and all that. But first of all, we’ll get the hell out of there as soon as humanly possible. Seems that the prime minister really did agree with the head of the army, Sir Richard Dannatt. The morale and integrity of the British armed forces are being seriously undermined.
But the real impetus for the ‘troops out’ movement is coming from conservatives in the US. The Republican grandee James Baker, the former secretary of state and member of the George Bush Snr clan, has called for withdrawal in an as yet unpublished report of the cross-party Iraq Study Group which calls for a new strategy, ie we’re stuffed.
Now, there may be an element of electoral gamesmanship about the leaks of his report. With the November congressional elections imminent, and the war profoundly unpopular, it doesn’t do the Republican Party any harm for it to appear as if there is an end in sight to the flow of body bags.
http://www.sundayherald.com/58642
http://www.sundayherald...
|
|