Blair heads to US amid Iraq withdrawal reports
Tony Blair will today fly to Washington for talks with George Bush, as a key report urged a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq within 18 months.
The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan committee of senior US statesmen, said most American troops should leave their combat role by early 2008 and also urged greater cooperation with the country’s neighbours, Iran and Syria.
However, the group did not set out any exact timetable for the 139,000 US troops based in Iraq to withdraw, and made clear the continuing role they will play in training up Iraqi police and defence forces.
It comes the day after President Bush’s choice as new defence secretary admitted he did not think the US was winning the war in Iraq. However, former CIA director Robert Gates also said he believed America was not losing the war either, “at this point”.
Asked about his comments in the House of Commons today, Tony Blair said he agreed that the US was not winning the war in Iraq, but said that as Mr Gates had stressed, it was important that “we do go on to succeed in the mission we set ourselves”.
He told MPs: “Both in Iran and Afghanistan it’s important that we build the capability of those governments in those countries to withstand the terrorists and make sure they succeed.”
In tomorrow’s meeting with Mr Bush, Mr Blair is expected to reiterate his belief that the sectarian violence in Iraq can only be resolved by taking a “holistic approach” to the whole of the Middle East, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
He gave evidence to the Iraq Study Group to this effect last month, and the group today argued the US’s aims in Iraq would only be achieved with a “renewed and sustained commitment to a comprehensive peace plan on all fronts”.
Today’s report, and the appointment of Mr Gates, is expected to signal a marked shift in US policy in Iraq and has prompted calls for a similar inquiry in the UK.
Ministers have repeatedly rejected calls to launch an investigation into the conduct of the war and its future strategy, and MPs voted narrowly in favour of the government’s position during a Commons debate in November.
However, yesterday shadow foreign secretary William Hague said that “given the pace of policy review taking place in the US, with two parallel reviews currently ongoing”, the government should make a full statement on UK policy in Iraq before Christmas.
Mr Bush has already indicated that the White House will take the Iraq Study Group’s findings “very seriously” and promised to act on them “in a timely fashion”.
UK foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said the report’s thinking was “broadly in line with our own” but said she would need time to digest the full recommendations.
