[FT]Jalal Talabani - Brit troops out of Iraq in 1 year?

[rquoter]
Support for 2006 British pull-out from Iraq


The government and senior military officers gave cautious backing on Sunday to a claim by Iraq’s president that British troops could withdraw from his country by the end of next year.


John Reid, defence secretary, said that president Jalal Talabani’s claim that Iraqi forces would be ready to replace British forces in the south of the country as “completely consistent” with UK policy.

But he stressed that the withdrawal of Britain’s 8,000 troops was contingent on conditions on the ground being met.

“That job will be done when the Iraqis themselves are capable of taking their own security into their own hands and that handover is something that could begin in parts of Iraq in the course of the next year,” Mr Reid told Sky News.

While ministers have in the past discussed the possibility of starting to withdraw troops next year, President Talabani’s remarks went further in naming a concrete target date.

The president told ITV that “we don’t want British forces forever in Iraq”. “Within one year – I think at the end of 2006 – Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the south,” he said.

However, he ruled out any immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, saying such a move would be a “catastrophe” and could lead to civil war.

General Sir Michael Jackson, head of the army, said it was “well within the range of what is realistically possible” that British troops could leave within the next year. But he warned against giving a firm date for a pull-out.

“What we are trying to achieve is a set of conditions at which point we have the confidence and, more importantly, the Iraqi government and people have the confidence they can fully stand on their own feet,” he said in a BBC television interview.

Iraqis are working on training their own soldiers and police to take control of their country’s security and fight an insurgency that has killed thousands of people since the 2003 US-led invasion.


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Here's a slightly more comprehensive article from the Independent, but I know how some factions here view that paper.

I'm not sure whether this is hype, an indication that the Brits are having political troubles at home, or indications that the Shia in the south are getting secure, but I think this is probably good news. Comments?

I think it would be a nice thing if there were a major Shia political force in the world that didn't believe that the US was the spawn of Satan. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for the Nobel Peace prize? If the British leave Iraq in a year he will be the man most responsible, thanks to his ability to provide a credible religious alternative to Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iranian viewpoint. He walked a difficult tightrope between war and peace.