BLUE BIRDS OVER:

US and UK look for early way out of Iraq (Ewen MacAskill, Richard Norton-Taylor and Rory McCarthy, January 22, 2005, The Guardian)

Private memos are circulating in Washington, Baghdad and London setting out detailed scenarios for withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq as early as possible, a Foreign Office source said yesterday.

The policy papers have added urgency because a new Iraq government, to be elected next week if the election goes ahead on January 30 as planned, could set a target date for withdrawal.

John Negroponte, US ambassador to Baghdad, confirmed that a United Nations resolution declared that US and other forces would have to leave if requested by the Iraqi government. "If that's the wish of the government of Iraq, we will comply with those wishes. But no, we haven't been approached on this issue - although obviously we stand prepared to engage the future government on any issue concerning our presence here."

The Foreign Office source said: "Of course, we think about leaving Iraq. There is no point in staying there. There are continually plans in Whitehall, Washington and Baghdad to withdraw when we can.

"But there is no document saying we will leave in July 2005 or any other date. That would be a mug's game. There are documents all over the place with different scenarios." Until recently, the British government was working to a rough target date of June next year but that appears to have been abandoned as over-optimistic.

Did the press buy it's own hype, that we're stuck there forever?

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 22, 2005 8:06 AM