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イラク英軍が米軍の要請で激戦地帯を巡回しファルージャ奪回を援護する
すでに下の方の投稿で、日本国内の大手メディア報道が分かっているが、実に薄味である。当のイギリスの報道は、その厳しい状況と本音を、具体的に述べている。
いかも、この情報は、イギリスの保守党の「影の内閣の国防大臣」による暴露なのである。
「影の内閣の国防大臣」は、ブレアに対して、大統領選挙を控えた「アメリカの政権への単なるジェスチュアとして部隊を危険に曝すな」と警告したのである。
650名ほどの英軍部隊は、イギリスが占領を担当しているバズラから、引き抜かれるのである。本国では、撤退の声が高まっているのに、深みに嵌るのである。
なぜか、簡単に言えば、米軍には、ファルージャの主導権奪回に向ける余力が無いのである。
アメリカの大統領選挙まで、無理して、占領を続けるためには、同盟軍に、無理を頼むのである。
もう、これが、最後じゃないのかな。
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1329369,00.html
UK troops set to patrol in key Iraq flashpoints
British redeployment will allow US assault on Falluja
Peter Beaumont and Martin Bright
Sunday October 17, 2004
The Observer
British troops are poised to deploy to two violent flash-points south of Baghdad that have seen regular terrorist attacks as well as heavy street fighting, in a move certain to entangle Britain more deeply in Iraq's growing violence.
Senior US military officers in Baghdad have asked for a battalion of British soldiers - around 650 men, almost certainly from the Black Watch - to be moved to the holy city of Najaf, where just weeks ago US troops were engaged in a month of street-fighting with Shia radicals.
While the majority of the soldiers would move into the US base just outside the city, more controversial is a request to deploy a company of British soldiers to Hilla, north of Najaf, and on the road to the rebel-controlled towns to the south of Baghdad.
The movement of the Black Watch from Basra is intended to free up US troops to join the long-awaited battle to retake Falluja, and clear it of terrorists loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The proposed redeployment would almost certainly put the British troops under US command. Senior opposition figures last night demanded assurances that a British chain of command be retained.
The disclosure comes as Nicholas Soames, the Tory shadow defence secretary, warned Tony Blair yesterday not to put troops in danger merely as a 'political gesture' to the US administration.
His calls were echoed by former senior servicemen and by former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who said British troops could find themselves associated with the US's more aggressive tactics.
'For a year, Britain has been trying in vain to persuade US forces to show the same restraint as our troops, who have won a lot of local goodwill as a result,' Cook said yesterday.
'The real risk of sending a British battalion into the US sector is that our troops could become associated in Iraqi minds with US methods.'
Further pressure on Blair over the conduct of the war comes in an interview today with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, for ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby Programme. Annan says he does not believe the removal of Saddam Hussein has made the world a safer place.
'I cannot say the world is safer,' said Annan, 'when you consider the violence around us, when you look around and see the attacks around the world. And you see what is going on in Iraq.
'I think it has become more difficult in that you are getting a concentration of terrorists in Iraq, almost like a magnet drawing them there, and linking them to other groups outside Iraq.'
The threatened US move against Falluja, which has followed days of bombing raids on rebel positions inside the city, stems from a determination in both Washington and London either to force the negotiated surrender of the insurgents there - and the handover of Zarqawi and his foreign fighters - or defeat them on the ground.
It is part of an aggressive new policy designed to defeat the Sunni uprising ahead of next January's planned elections and imposition of government control in Falluja, Ramadi and Baquba by Iraq's own police and security forces by December at the latest.
Political leaders in Washington and London have been emboldened by the US's rapid success in regaining control of Samarra after an assault lasting a few days, and by the agreement of radical Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr to join the political process.
The result has been weeks of discreet negotiations with tribal and political leaders in the Sunni Triangle and an attempt to persuade them to build a political platform.
Under the American plan, a light brigade of US troops, plus perhaps as many again Iraqis, would be used to storm insurgent positions in the city of 300,000, which has become a symbol of resistance to the US-led forces and the interim government of Ayad Allawi.
Any attempt to retake Falluja, however, is likely to be an extremely messy affair that risks high civilian casualties and a repeat of the widespread anger across Iraq during the last assault on the city in the spring.
Last week, Ghazi al-Yawar, the Iraqi president and a Sunni, warned of the consequences of an assault on Falluja. 'We learn one thing in Iraq: that blood causes more blood,' Yawar said. 'It will send ripples as far as Mosul, which has the biggest Sunni population, three million-plus, which is living in a very tense situation right now.'
The new strategy has emerged in tandem with diplomatic efforts to try to strangle the flow of money and personnel through Syria from former senior Baathists, including Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed, who was named to The Observer by Western intelligence as one of the key organisers of the insurgency.
The redeployment of British troops to such a potentially explosive area is raising questions both over the creeping nature of Britain's involvement in Iraq and the risk of overstretch.
Speaking on Radio 4 yesterday, Soames said that British forces should not be sent simply as a gesture to Washington ahead of the presidential elections.
'We need to watch the timing and be careful that this isn't being used as a kind of political gesture to reassure the Americans of Tony Blair's support for the American efforts.'
Soames's comments were echoed by Lib Dem defence spokesman Paul Keetch, who joined him in calling for a statement: 'We should be told the exact role and responsibilities that they will be asking our troops to perform and precisely where the direct authority for them will lie.'
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