I don’t know what it is with the British press at the moment. Why have they published this exact same article (in most papers) every day for the last couple of weeks? Maybe they think that if they repeat something long enough it will become true. I remember that the Telegraph was adament for months that the Royal Navy would be cut down to a Coastal Defence Force size. They’ve gone strangely quiet since two new aircraft carriers were confirmed. How many times does Brown have to say that there is no timetable for British troop withdrawals for it to sink in?
I often get confused by the negative reporting about events in the south. Just the other day 50 people were killed in pitched battles between shiite militias in Karbala (outside of the area of British responsibility). I have neve heard of that level of violence in Basra etc (despite reports that this is now a den of militia infighting).
Just to note: In the same edition of this paper in which this article was published was this report:
“US tactics in Iraq ‘are not working’: report”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/31/wirq131.xml
The British press have published contradictory reports on all aspects of the Iraq war since it began. I’ve lost count of the number of British ‘withdrawal’ stories naming dates for UK departure that have all subsequently passed over these last 4 and a half years. Papers will similarly have articles about US successes on one page, then have stories about US plans for emergency withdrawal on the next.The UK government is still refusing to pull troops out of Iraq on a false timetable. Even with recent reductions British forces will still number 5000 with, in the words of the UK government, the continued capability to launch offensive operations against the insurgents.