US wants British to move north into heart of Iraq fighting

[Robbien]

Patrick Wintour and Luke Harding in Baghdad
Friday April 23, 2004
The Guardian

The Ministry of Defence is resisting US pressure on Britain to extend its sphere of military influence in Iraq to some of the most violent parts of the country, including the capital Baghdad.

Britain is being leant on by the US military, although no formal request has been issued, to provide a new headquarters unit in south-central Iraq to replace Spanish troops being pulled out by the new Madrid government. That would take British troops into the troubled town of Najaf, where the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is holed up.

<snip>

Nicholas Soames, the shadow defence secretary, yesterday wrote to Tony Blair demanding urgent clarification of a report in the Washington Post that Britain is being asked to extend its remit in the wake of the Spanish pullout.

The prime minister said yesterday at his weekly press conference there were no plans to increase the size of the British forces in Iraq. But plans for a wider British remit were under discussion before this week's suicide bombings in Basra, previously held up as a model of soft-touch policing by the British.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1201565,00.html

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Translation...

"When are you limey fucks gonna start takin some casualties?!!"

"After you, mate!"..."No please, after you!"..."Oh no, I insist! After you!"

"Cheerio, old chap!!!"

[Ilsa]

3. They've had about 60 KIA, I think. How many troops

do they have in Eye-Wrack?

[cjbuchanan]

2. So will they be the next to go?

They actually have an active press core over there. The public will not stand for the dead. Blair will fall and England will be out of Iraq.