About the So-Called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ (From Speaker Pelosi's blog)

[jefferson_dem]

About the So-Called ‘Coalition of the Willing’
February 21st, 2007 by Brendan Daly

With the announcement today that Britain will start pulling troops out of Iraq in the coming months, here is more information about the so-called “Coalition of the Willing.”

WHY IS THE U.S. ADDING MORE TROOPS?
United States – 135,000 → adding an additional 21,500 by May 2007.

THE LARGEST CONTRIBUTORS TO THE COALITION ARE REDUCING FORCES:
United Kingdom – 7,100 → 5,500 in “coming months” and, according to news reports, all British forces are expected to be withdrawn by the end of 2008.
South Korea – 2,300 → 1,100 to be withdrawn by April 2007; Parliament wants complete troop withdrawal by end of 2007

TOTAL NUMBER OF TROOPS FROM REMAINING PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES: 4,395 (Countries: Poland, Romania, Australia El Salvador, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Latvia, Albania, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Lithuania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Estonia, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, and Slovenia; does not include Denmark’s 460 troops the government just announced would be withdrawn by the end of summer 2007)

AVERAGE TROOP COMMITMENT PER COUNTRY: 220 – however, nearly half of the participating countries have committed 100 or fewer troops to the coalition. (Czech Republic, Lithuania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Estonia, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, and Slovenia)

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES NO LONGER PARTICIPATING IN THE COALITION: 16 (Hungary, Nicaragua, Spain, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Tonga, Portugal, Singapore, Norway, Ukraine, Japan, Italy, and Slovakia.)

COUNTRIES TRANSITIONING OUT OF THE COALITION: 2
Moldova’s 11 troops recently returned home and the country has not decided whether or not to send in a new deployment.
Denmark’s government announced plans to withdraw their 460 troops by August 2007.

Sources: GlobalSecurity.org; Department of Defense; media reports.

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=46#respond

[AnnInLa]

1. Don't forget Lithuania!

I mean, don't forget that Lithuania is also pulling out its troops...all 56 of them. (Don't remember the actual number, but Think Progress reported this yesterday.)

[LiberalEsto]

2. I wish Estonia would pull out

but they are scared Russia will take over their country again. They think that by supporting the Iraq war, the US will protect them against another Russian invasion.

They've had 16 years of independence after nearly 50 years in the Soviet Union, and Putin's been saying lately that he wants to take back Russia's former republics.

[fed-up]

3. k/r and bookmarked n/t