UK to take 5,500 troops out of Iraq & put more troops in Afghanistan

[donsu]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/03/nirq03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/03/ixnewstop.html

Britain to pull 5,500 troops out of Iraq


Defence chiefs are planning to reduce the size of the British military force in Iraq from 9,000 to 3,500 troops within 12 months as part of a phased withdrawal from Iraq, The Telegraph can reveal.

In the first stage of Britain's "exit strategy", troops will be withdrawn from three of the Army's five military bases in southern Iraq by April 2006.

The move also fits in with a plan to increase British troop numbers in Afghanistan in a renewed attempt to hunt down Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qa'eda figures who are believed to be hiding close to the country's border with Pakistan.

-snip-

A senior Army officer said: "Iraq remains a side issue in the war against terrorism although the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organisation has given Islamic militants a new front. The real war against terror still needs to be won in Afghanistan, where the leaders of al-Qa'eda and the Taliban are still hiding. Their death or capture will be a decisive blow."
-snip-
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poor Afghanistan. here they come again to murder and plunder in your land.

Iraq is a "side issue" ???

[rodeodance]

1. pull out in April of 2006** this is a Blair election strategy!