What your hit-and-run style news reporting doesn't reveal is that Britain has steadily withdrawn their troops from Iraq over the past four years.
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It's only news now because Blair has started using this slow, steady pullout to his political advantage. His approval ratings in Britain are worse than Bush's in America so now he's pandering. This next troop level reduction won't vindicate him, but it will remove some of the tarnish from his legacy.
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Originally Posted by theknife
it's a rout, not a victory.
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Basra is the coalition's link to the gulf, most of their supply lines run through it. If troops in Basra really had been routed then the war would be over. Well the war is decidedly not over. This idea of yours that civil war has permeated every nook and cranny of Iraq and engulfed the lives of everyone there is absurd. Basra has its share of violence, but it is not on the verge of self destruction, and neither is most of Iraq for that matter.