Guardian:'It is the armed forces that are saving the politicians'

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'It is the armed forces that are saving the politicians' reputations'
The Guardian asked serving soldiers yesterday about the proposed withdrawal from Iraq. They cannot speak to the media without permission so all views were given anonymously

Corporal currently serving in Iraq
I don't think there's any right time for us to withdraw. If we were to pack up and leave next week - which I guarantee is what most of us want - it would leave a power vacuum, and ultimately make all the guys' and girls' hard work pointless. If we leave later than the prime minister has stated, we antagonise the Iraqi people even more than they are now. Let's face it, in their eyes we're the invading force - not occupying force, peacekeepers or whatever. Your average Iraqi just wants to get on with life and feels until we go that won't happen. Reducing numbers and pulling out of areas of Basra will hopefully appease the population. What will need to happen though, is the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police service stand up and be counted, and show the integrity not to be corrupted by the local tribes and gangs ... To put it bluntly: we don't want to be there. They don't want us there. But we are there, and it's only right the job is finished properly before we're not there.

(snip)
A corporal in the Queens Dragoon Guards who has been on three tours
I feel sorry for some of the true Iraqi people that want to get on with their lives yet cannot because of the intimidation they suffer from some of the police and the militia. If we get out now I think Iran will try to stake its claim in the south of Iraq. We must stay until the job of building Iraq into a secure nation is complete. The frustration is: will it ever be a secure nation? So do we waste more British lives on a country that is ungrateful? I never want to go there again

(snip)
RAF logistics officer, one tour in Basra
The armed forces, through their hard work, have enabled us to reach this point and, ironically, it is the armed forces that are saving the politicians' reputations when the Iraq war has done more than any other conflict to prove how little government actually cares about us.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2018467,00.html