Honduras only has a few hundred, but Poland has the third most after the US and UK. There seems to be some confusion. ************* Poland planning pull-out of troops from Iraq Derek Scally, in Warsaw Poland is planning to withdraw its troops from Iraq in the coming months, dealing another blow to the US-led coalition forces there. The revelation yesterday by a senior government adviser that Poland's 2,500 soldiers would leave Iraq comes just a day after the new Spanish Prime Minister, Mr José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, announced the pull-out of Spanish troops "as soon as possible". President Bush reacted to the Spanish decision by accusing Mr Zapatero yesterday of giving "false comfort to terrorists \ enemies of freedom in Iraq". The White House spokesman, Mr Scott McClellan, said that in a five-minute telephone call to Mr Zapatero, Mr Bush also urged Spain's withdrawal to "take place in a co-ordinated manner that does not put at risk other coalition forces in Iraq". Spain said last night its troops would be out within six to eight weeks. A senior adviser to the Polish government confirmed to The Irish Times that Warsaw's decision had been influenced by the Spanish move. "Given the circumstances [in Iraq], we will probably diminish significantly the forces at the end of 2004," said Prof Tadeusz Iwinski, secretary of state for international affairs in the office of the prime minister. Questioned further by The Irish Times, he said: "It is much easier to send troops in than to withdraw them, but we will probably do it at the end of 2004 or the start of 2005." As well as 2,500 soldiers, Poland commands a 9,000-strong division of troops from 24 nations, including 1,300 Spanish soldiers. Poland and Spain had worked closely as both political and military allies over Iraq. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence in Warsaw was unable to comment. However, indicating evident confusion within the government, the Polish President, Mr Aleksander Kwasniewski, was quoted yesterday pledging to keep Polish soldiers in Iraq. He bemoaned the Spanish decision to withdraw and said he hoped that the Latin American members of the coalition would keep their troops in Iraq. But last night there were signs that this would not happen. El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua provided 900 troops to the Spanish-speaking Plus Ultra Brigade which was headed by Spain. Honduras said it would definitely withdraw its 400 troops. Nicaragua has already pulled out by not replacing its 115 troops because of a lack of funds. The US State Department spokesman, Mr Richard Boucher, insisted that El Salvador was "holding fast", as he put it. According to the Associated Press, Albania, a predominantly Muslim country, has told the US it is prepared to send more non-combat troops to Iraq, on top of the 71-member contingent already there, in the northern city of Mosul, under US command. .link
How can this be? The liberals said this was a unilateral mission. Cutting and running is the worst possible strategy.
no way, Australia's PM has pledged to keep the Aussie troops there as long as he keeps sharing GWB bed
no i would say invading a country pre-emptivly on false evidence with no real exit strategy while causing hate for America to rise and breed thousands of new terrorist is the worst possible strategy
Quoted the Australian PM, "I b'lee tha' th' U. Eth. co'li'th'n i' doowa' gwea' jo'.... (pulls object from mouth) Just give me a minute, will you, George? Anyway, as I was saying, I believe that the U.S. coalition is doing a great job..." "What kind of 'job' are we talking about?" (snickering press corps) "Oh sod off, if you'd seen the oil prices we were offered, you'd do the same thing!"
Poland and Honduras? No biggie. One couldn't defend themselves against an army of ants and the other has a military that supports the drug lords.
So, if this drags on for years, which it might, and if we are unlucky enough to see Bush reelected, which is still a possibility, if unlikely, and it comes down to just us and a couple of other "no biggie's", because Bush is such an inept dunce in the realm of foreign policy, then it's just a "no biggie", right? Add up enough of those "no biggie's" and you have a supersized hole in the force structure occupying Iraq. A biggie indeed, especially to the families of our people serving there. Longer deployments and an even bigger load on the United States, courtesy of George W. Bush, chump extraordinaire.
Oh yeah...because before the war in Iraq, all the people just loved us, there were no terrorist training camps, and they were all singing "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke."
You give a perfect example of why I should pay no attention whatsoever to your posts. It's a pity... there are few enough conservatives on this board who are fun to discuss issues with. You are clearly not one of them. Hope you enjoy yourself. Adios.
yeah refman they liked us before so lets go out and make them like us more?? so 2 wrongs make a right?? sorry but you are an idiot refman
Nope, Refman is a man of intelligence, even if we frequently disagree. People sure are jumping to conclusions lately based on an apparent lack of knowledge about the posting history of many of us here. Is it a bunch of new folks who've discovered this forum or what? I think we need new posters here badly, but I wish some of you could check out the posts on a variety of subjects that come from those members that have a history in Hangout/D&D. Some of us who are of the Liberal persuasion disagree with each other quite often, at least I've found that to be true, not just with some of the conservative posters. And sometimes (gasp!) we agree with a conservative poster about something... the very idea! Just a thought.
