Leaving, Ready Or Not?

The US Senate has been told that Iraqi security forces are nowhere near ready to combat the insurgency on their own.

Gen Pace said about half of Iraq's new police battalions were still being established and were not in a position to conduct operations. The other half of the police and two-thirds of the new Iraqi army battalions were only "partially capable" of carrying out counter-insurgency missions, and required US help.

"Only a small number of Iraqi security forces are taking on the insurgents and terrorists by themselves," Gen Pace wrote.

The memo has been declassified after a request by Senator Carl Levin for publicly available information following a behind-closed-doors briefing.

The Pentagon was due to present Congress with a comprehensive report on the Iraqi insurgency by July 11, but missed the deadline.

Mr Rumsfeld said the report, when delivered, would not include an estimate of how many US troops might be needed in Iraq next year, as Congress had asked. He has argued that those numbers are impossible to predict and will be determined by the strength of the insurgency and the speed of Iraqi training.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi committee which is meant to produce a draft constitution by 15th August is deadlocked after Sunni members withdrew from the proceedings.

Two Sunnis involved in drafting the constitution were gunned down on Tuesday, prompting others to suspend their participation pending better security. Kamal Hamdoun, one of the 12 remaining Sunnis appointed to the constitutional commission last month, said yesterday that the minority would continue its boycott until an international investigation into the killings had been launched and Sunnis received a greater voice in drafting the charter.

The road to civil war is looking broader.

It could get worse if British MP's pass Claire Short's new bill and then use it's retroactive clause to withdraw British troops from Iraq.

a retrospective clause - inserted to allow the prime minister to go to war in an emergency and then put a report before parliament to justify the action - would mean that MPs would have a chance to vote on whether troops should remain in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report says: "Under this clause retrospective approval would have to be granted for the participation of British forces in armed conflicts that begun prior to the legislation coming into force."

It also warns of a potential loophole in the legislation. If Tony Blair lost a vote on keeping troops in Iraq, in theory he would have to withdraw them within 30 days. But the bill allows the prime minister to keep troops in a foreign country for an unspecified period as a precursor to withdrawal.

The report says that the bill is attracting considerable support, with 167 MPs backing the motion including Mr Hague, Mr Cook, the former Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke, Tony Wright, Labour chairman of the influential Commons public administration committee, Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, and Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Nationalist party.

Tony Blair opposes the bill because it would restrict his ability to send troops on foreign missions at short notice. The chancellor, Gordon Brown, is more sympathetic.

I agree that the bill is a good measure for future events and that had the bill been in place a few years ago the UK would not now be in Iraq - however, it is. For the UK to withdraw from Iraq now would undoubtably help precipitate a civil war in that country and would be moral dereliction of duty of the highest order. To use the retroactive clause to force UK withdrawal from a situation partly of the UK's making would simply be wrong.

Trouble is, Blair and Brown making noises that are starting to sound like "let's declare the Iraqis ready as soon as possible and go home, whether they are really ready or not". The Iraqis may be left in the lurch to fight a civil war either way.

Facts don't have to fit such a policy as it can be spun just as effectively as "we are winning the war on terror" by judicious rhetoric, proclaiming media bias and ignoring inconvenient truths.