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| Iraq |
| Britain out of Iraq by late 2009: Iraqi official |
| 2008-11-15 |
| All British troops will be out of Iraq by the end of next year, Iraq's national security advisor said Friday, days before Baghdad was expected to vote on a controversial U.S. military pact. "By the end of next year there will be no British troops in Iraq. By the end of 2009," Muwafaq al-Rubaie said, adding that negotiations between London and Baghdad on the pull-out had begun two weeks ago. A British defense ministry spokesman in London said in response that Britain has "no timetable" for the withdrawal of its roughly 4,000 troops in Iraq, the vast majority of which are based in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. "We are hopefully making progress, we have made progress in Basra, and we are on course to meet the (British) prime minister's fundamental change of mission in 2009," the spokesman said, reiterating previously-stated plans. Baghdad has been racing to secure separate agreements with both Britain and the United States to replace the U.N. mandate currently governing the presence of foreign troops in the country, which expires December 31. Iraq's cabinet was expected to vote on the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a wide-ranging U.S. military pact, either Saturday or Sunday. The two sides have been wrangling over the document for months. Rubaie insisted however that the agreement Iraq sought with the British was simpler and would not take as much time to complete. He added that by the middle of next year there would be a "dramatic" reduction of British troops. In July British Prime Minister Gordon Brown indicated he wanted to cut the number of Britain's troop in the violence-wracked country but ruled out a timetable for their withdrawal. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a British daily last month that British troops are no longer necessary for the security of Iraq and should go home. "We thank them for the role they have played, but I think that their stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control," he was quoted as saying in The Times. Iraq has seen improvements in security over the past year as U.S. and Iraqi forces have allied with local tribal militias to flush insurgents and militias out of vast swaths of the country that were once ungovernable. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 rub some dirt on your faces before you get off the plane so aybe yall can say you did something |
| Posted by: chris 2008-11-15 10:38 |
| #1 Prolly for the best. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-11-15 09:26 |