A Ludicrous Attempt at Spin

Kim Murphy writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Britain's decision to pull 1,600 troops out of Iraq by spring, touted by U.S. and British leaders as a turning point in Iraqi sovereignty, was widely seen Wednesday as a telling admission that the British military could no longer sustain simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Rick Jervis writes in USA Today: "Britain's planned reduction in its force in southern Iraq could empower Iran and lead to more bloodshed between rival Shiite Muslim groups, analysts warned Wednesday.

"The area around Basra is less violent than Baghdad, and sectarian killings are rare, in part because it is overwhelmingly Shiite. But the government's authority there is rivaled by armed groups that are 'thoroughly intertwined with criminal enterprises,' according to a report from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy."

Alan Cowell writes in the New York Times that "senior Defense Department official said that, if security conditions deteriorated in the south, American commanders might need to send in their own forces to help remaining British units and Iraqi troops. He noted that the United States also usually keeps reserve forces nearby in Kuwait that could be sent into Iraq as well."

Patrick Cockburn writes in the Independent: "It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe."

Back and Forth

Stephen Collinson writes for AFP: "Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid bluntly said Britain had 'acknowledged a reality' that Bush 'still stubbornly refuses to accept' as he sends thousands more American soldiers into Iraq.

"'There can be no purely military solution in Iraq,' Reid said in a statement.

"The White House later issued a point-by-point rebuttal of Reid's statement, complete with quotations from Blair's speech which said the partial redeployment was not based on an artificial timeline."

National Guard Watch

David S. Cloud writes in the New York Times: "The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush's buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday. . . .

"The accelerated timetable illustrates the cascading effect that the White House plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq by more than 21,000 is putting on the entire Army and in particular on Reserve forces, which officers predicted would face severe challenges in recruiting, training and equipping their forces.

"It also highlights the political risks of the White House's Iraq strategy. Sending large numbers of reservists to Iraq in the middle of next year's election campaign could drive up casualties among part-time soldiers in communities where support for the administration's approach in Iraq is already tenuous, according to opinion polls."

What Bush Has Wrought

Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank write in Mother Jones that Bush's theory that the war in Iraq is reducing the overall pool of terrorists is wrong.