UK haggles with US over extra troops

[dArKeR]

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Tuesday, May 25, 2004,Page 6

The British government is still haggling with the US over the terms by which at least 3,000 British troops will soon be deployed in Iraqi troublespots without being tainted by what a leaked British memo calls "heavy-handed" American military tactics.

Senior officials stress there is no doubt further British troops will be sent to Iraq before sovereignty is handed over to an interim Iraqi government in Baghdad on June 30. It is a deadline that US President George W. Bush was scheduled to confirm in a speech yesterday.

But British military chiefs have urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to send extra forces only on British terms, not those of the US, whose tactics they privately damn as brutal and counterproductive.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/25/2003156886

[Spazito]

1. blair seems intent on committing political hari-kari...

sending more troops when the British public want the ones that are already there to come home seems insane.

[AP]

2. The issue isn't how many troops, but what they do once they get there.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. "whose tactics they privately damn as brutal and counterproductive" - doh!

.
.
.

Why even be "private" about it - sheesh

The rest of the world knows ?

Here's an indication of what the Iraqis think:


_{A mural by an Iraqi artist in Sadr City, Iraq, Baghdad's largest Shiite neighborhood, depicts the US Statue of Liberty, left, flipping an electrical switch on wires attached to a detainee of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, on Sunday.}

And this is in TAIWAN's news - not on CNN, in fact I haven't even seen it on Canuk news -

The "West" definitely has it's blinders on

We will pay dearly for our apathy I'm afraid

As we should-

Lets not forget the thousands of children dying and suffering wounds at the hands of the US as we watch our "reality" shows




_{Iraqi girl Moza Rikad, 14, lies injured in a bed in a hospital in Ramadi, 110km west of Baghdad, on Sunday. Moza was injured by shrapnel to her leg during a wedding party that was attacked by US helicopters near the Syrian border last Wednesday. Rikad lost her mother and two of her brothers and sisters.}

They will not soon forget the US

or so-called "liberators" and christians . .

(sigh)

[PartyPooper]

4. What would Elizabeth have say about all of this?

Aren't these British troops to replace the Spaniards who withdrew this past month?

Methinks Her Majesty, the Queen, would not be too "amused".

:shrug: