LONDON, Feb 22: Britain and the United States are “on the same page” in terms of their respective strategies in Iraq, Britain’s defence secretary insisted in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday.
Des Browne also said it was not the government’s intention to take troops out of Iraq and put them into Afghanistan, where British troops are part of a 37-nation force led by Nato.
His comments came after Prime Minister Tony Blair announced earlier on Wednesday Britain’s first large-scale cut of troop numbers in Iraq, with nearly a quarter set to return home within months.
That contrasts with American policy in the country – US President George W. Bush announced in January that 21,500 more troops would join the 138,000 American soldiers already in Iraq in an effort to quell insurgent violence.
Mr Blair told parliament that British forces would be reduced by 1,600 to 5,500 over the coming months, with further withdrawals likely to cut the strength of the country’s presence to fewer than 5,000 troops later in the year.
“The American forces are deployed in Baghdad. Eighty to 90 per cent of the violence in this country is perpetrated in and around Baghdad,” Des Browne told the broadcaster.
“We’re in a very different set of circumstances from that. We are in the same strategy. They understand what we’re doing, I’ve explained it to them myself.”
After noting that he had spoken to US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates on Tuesday, Browne again stressed: “We’re all on the same page in relation to this.”
He continued: “You don’t have to be a military genius ... to know that the challenges in security that the people of Iraq and the American forces based in Baghdad are different than the challenges in security that we face in Basra.”
“We’re doing different things because we’re facing different conditions.”
Asked if Britain was planning to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, where about 5,000 British soldiers are based – with a further 800 set to join them by late summer – Browne replied: “People should understand that it’s not our intention ... to take troops out of one theatre and deploy them into another, or even deploy them back into the same theatre.”—AFP
