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 White House officials said they had known for a while that the British were 
 moving in this direction and that Prime Minister Tony Blair informed Bush of 
 his decision during a secure videoconference Tuesday. But the rest of 
 Washington was taken by surprise, and Republicans were put back on their 
 heels, just as they were beginning to feel more confident that the fight 
 over war strategy was shifting their way. 
  
 The House last week approved a nonbinding resolution opposing the 
 president's planned deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Baghdad and 
 Anbar province in western Iraq. But Republicans have since been on offense, 
 hammering a House Democratic plan that would tie war funding in a 
 supplemental spending bill to strict new standards for resting, equipping 
 and training troops. 
  
 The strategy, championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed in 
 principle by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was supposed to 
 neutralize GOP charges that Democrats plan to "de-fund" the war, while 
 forcing Republicans to defend the deployment of troops who are not rated 
 fully trained and equipped. But Republicans labeled it a "slow bleed" 
 strategy that would leave troops in harm's way by blocking their 
 reinforcements. 
  
 Vice President Cheney was the latest to jump on Murtha's plan, yesterday 
 calling it "a huge mistake" and a "policy of defeat" that would embolden 
 terrorists. 
  
 "If we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, 
 all we'll do is validate the al-Qaeda strategy," he told ABC News in Japan, 
 where he is traveling. "The al-Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the 
 American people." 
  
 Pelosi bristled at the attack, issuing a statement complaining that Cheney 
 was besmirching her patriotism and calling on Bush to "repudiate and 
 distance himself from the Vice President's remark." 
  
 The news of Britain's partial withdrawal, though, swamped the funding debate 
 for at least a day. "The timing of the British announcement is very 
 unfortunate," said Nile Gardiner, a scholar at the conservative Heritage 
 Foundation. "The British decision is going to be used as a political 
 football by opponents of the president's Iraq plan." 
  
 Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said the move will undercut Republicans in Congress 
 trying to stave off attempts to limit what Bush can do in Iraq. 
  
 "It's probably not going to bode well for those of us who want to make a 
 case against what Murtha and Pelosi plan for the supplemental," LaHood said. 
 "It does not help." 
  
 Blair's announcement could also boost calls by Democrats and some 
 Republicans for a serious change in Iraq policy-- not just in the number of 
 troops fighting but also in what those troops should do. The British plan to 
 withdraw 2,100 of 7,100 troops by summer's end and to redeploy the remainder 
 away from combat toward more training of Iraqi troops and patrolling the 
 Iranian border. That mirrors bipartisan Senate proposals for U.S. forces 
 that are spelled out in two stalled nonbinding resolutions, including one 
 co-sponsored by Warner. 
  
 "What the British are doing, and what we really need to do, is to tease out 
 the cultural complexities of this thing," said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest 
 (R-Md.). "On the one hand, they are signaling to all the Iraqi people, 
 whatever sect they are -- Sunnis, Shias, Kurds -- they are not going to be 
 an occupying force. That's a powerful signal to send. And the other signal 
 is that they are passing the torch to the Iraqis, who are the only ones who 
 can handle this ancient -- I'd say primitive -- sectarian dispute." 
  
 The White House argued that comparing the British situation in Basra and the 
 U.S. position in Baghdad fundamentally distorts reality. The south, where 
 the British have been in charge, has no Sunni insurgency and far less 
 violence than Baghdad or Anbar. The coalition plan all along has been to 
 pull out foreign troops when an area is ready for Iraqi control, the White 
 House said. 
  
 "The fact that they have made some progress on the ground is going to enable 
 them to move some of the forces out, and that's ultimately the kind of thing 
 that we want to be able to see throughout Iraq," said White House press 
 secretary Tony Snow. He said no consideration was given to asking the 
 British to instead redeploy those departing troops to help their U.S. 
 counterparts in Baghdad or Anbar. 
  
 Hadley, speaking to reporters in Brussels, where he was traveling, said he 
 did not mean to suggest the British departure signals "an unalloyed picture 
 of progress," but he rejected a more negative interpretation. "I didn't want 
 people to think it reflected a lack of confidence by the British in the 
 mission or a turning away from the mission," he said. "It is not." 
  
 Still, other administration officials, speaking on the condition of 
 anonymity so they could talk candidly about political strategy, expressed 
 frustration that the British decision will look bad to everyday Americans, 
 and acknowledged that it will provide ammunition to domestic opponents. 
  
 "It's a brick in the hands of folks who want to take cheap shots," one 
 official said. "But I think it's unfair." 
  
  
                               *** 
  
 The Independent - 22 February 2007 
  
 The retreat from Basra 
  
 By Patrick Cockburn 
  
 It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's 
 bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony 
 Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq 
 because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger. 
  
 In fact the civil war is getting worse by the day. Food is short in parts of 
 the country. A quarter of the population would starve without government 
 rations. Many Iraqis are ill because their only drinking water comes from 
 the highly polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 
  
 Nowhere in Mr Blair's statement was any admission of regret for reducing 
 Iraq to a wasteland from which 2 million people have fled and 1.5 million 
 are displaced internally. 
  
 Nadia al-Mashadani, a Sunni woman with four children, was forced from her 
 house in the Hurriya district of Baghdad under threat of death by Shia 
 militiamen on 25 December. She was not allowed to take any possessions and 
 is living with her family in a small room in a school in a Sunni 
 neighbourhood. She told The Independent: "They promised us freedom and now 
 we find ourselves like slaves: no rights, no homes, no freedom, no 
 democracy, and not enough strength to say a word." Like many Sunni she 
 believed the US had deliberately fomented sectarian hatred in Iraq to keep 
 control of the country. 
  
 Mr Blair's description of Iraq might have been of a different country from 
 that in which Mrs Mashadani is trying to survive. He dodged the question of 
 why Britain can reduce its forces in Iraq below 5,000 by late summer at the 
 same time as the US is sending a further 21,500 soldiers as reinforcements. 
  
 He stressed that the situation where British troops are based around Basra 
 is very different from Baghdad and central Iraq where the bulk of US forces 
 are concentrated. 
  
 The speed of the reduction in British forces in southern Iraq will be slower 
 than many senior British officers had privately urged. Mr Blair said "the UK 
 military presence will continue into 2008". But long before then almost all 
 the remaining British forces will be located at Basra air base and act in 
 support of Iraqi military and police units. 
  
  
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