Perhaps a White House press release is not national news, but the previous story about a troop draw down in Iraq has not been picked up by the media.
President Bush said Monday: 30,000 surge troops will be coming home by July.
So to iterate, and format for syndication, here’s Prime Minister Brown and President Bush from their recent press conference on pulling out troops from Iraq.
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Q Are you prepared to see British troop withdrawn from Iraq while you’re still in office, or are you concerned about the symbolic significance of that?
PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Can I just say that in Iraq there is a job to be done and we will continue to do the job, and there’s going to be no artificial timetable. And the reason is that we are making progress—making progress in the Iraqis themselves being trained up to run the (inaudible) forces, and of course to be the police men and women in their areas. And we’re making progress also because we hope local government elections will happen later this year. We hope to return the airport that we are responsible for in Basra to civilian use, as well. And most of all, in the next stage, we want to see the economic and social development of Basra and the southern part of Iraq proceed, so that people have a stake in the future.
So, yes, we are moving from what we call “combat” to “overwatch”, and that’s been announced many months ago—yes, as a result of what happened in Basra a few months ago we have kept higher the level of troops that are necessary, but yes, also, we have a job that’s still to be done. And that job is to train up the forces, that job is to speed up economic and social development, and that job is to have local government elections so that Iraqis can take control of their own democracy. And I’m determined that we continue to do that job.
And that will happen not at the cost of lesser troops for Afghanistan, but with more troops going to Afghanistan. The Defense Secretary will announce later this afternoon that we will send more troops to Afghanistan. The reason is that we want to help the Afghans train up their own army and their own police forces, and the reason is we want to have better equipment in Iraq—in Afghanistan in future; and therefore there’s going to be a reconfiguration of our troops, with some coming out and some more going in, and that an overall increase in the numbers so that we will have the highest level of troops in Afghanistan. You cannot trade numbers between the two countries.
There is a job to do in Iraq, and I’ve described it. And there is a job to do in Afghanistan, and we will continue to do it. And the fact that 43 countries are helping us in Afghanistan and 80 countries are supporting the economic and social development of Afghanistan shows how in this country, which is one of the poorest in the world, we are trying to make progress more quickly. So the announcement will come later today from the Defense Secretary.
PRESIDENT BUSH: We’re withdrawing troops. We anticipate the 30,000 surge troops will be coming home by July—more or less, 30,000. And so the plan is, bring them home based upon success. That’s what we expect the British Prime Minister to do. That’s what I’m doing—that as the Iraqis are trained up, as they’re taking more responsibility, as the security situations decline, as the economy is improved, as political reconciliation is taking place, we can bring more troops home. That’s the whole purpose of the strategy. And so, give the Iraqis more responsibility. Let them take more—be in more charge of their own security and their own government, and that’s what’s happening.
And so, you know, I mean—look, the key thing for me is that I have—you know, is that Gordon shares with me his plans. He listens to—he talks to his commanders and he picks up the phone and says, here’s what we’re thinking. So there’s no surprises. And as I said yesterday on TV here, I have no problem with how Gordon Brown is dealing with Iraq. He’s been a good partner and—but, as I told you, we’re bringing ours home, too.
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Second Hat Tip to Bill Baar for having the nerve to find this story ignored by the major media.