Blair is accused of using UK troops to help smirk's election

[donsu]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1017-02.htm

Tony Blair last night stood accused of conspiring to use British troops in Iraq as a "political gesture" to help George W Bush in the US presidential election.

The Prime Minister faced protests from all sides over plans to redeploy British forces to an area 25 miles south of Baghdad, freeing the US 24th Marine Expeditionary Force for an expected assault on the rebel stronghold of Fallujah.


Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, is preparing to make a Commons statement tomorrow announcing that about 650 soldiers from the Black Watch will leave Basra and come under US command "for a few weeks".

The Sunday Telegraph understands, however, that the deployment is being resisted by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

Nicholas Soames, the Conservative defence spokesman, also expressed concern yesterday and suggested that British troops were being moved for political reasons. "We need to watch the timing of all this," he said, "and to be careful that this isn't just being used as a kind of political gesture to reassure the Americans of Prime Minister Blair's support for the American efforts.
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they also wonder about the timing:

"What alarms and awes me is the timing of this operation, particularly during Ramadan."


alarms all over the world over the actions of the criminal bloody bushgang are probably so loud they can be heard on the moon.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Hoon: UK 'has duty to redeploy troops'

Geoff Hoon has said Britain will "have failed in its duty as an ally" if it did not agree to send UK soldiers to fill in behind US troops.

Mr Hoon was responding to a question from Lib Dem MP Jenny Tonge, who asked what penalties the UK would incur if it did not agree to the US request.

Earlier Mr Hoon had said no decision on deployment would be made before the middle of this week.
...
"We want to make clear that the request is a military request and although it is linked to elections it is not linked to the US elections," Mr Hoon told MPs in a Commons statement.

How would you know, Geoff? What we found out from the Hutton Inquiry is that whenever there's an important decision to be made, you're kept out of the loop. You're a waste of oxygen.

[Wat_Tyler]

2. British troops under US command, eh?

Whatever happened to British independence? Is this what the UK's armed forces have been reduced to, second fiddle to the mad dreams of a gang of psychopaths?