Abandon ship!
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070221/2/12hxk.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Friday February 23, 08:28 AM
<b>Iraqis must police themselves: Denmark</b>
Attacks against coalition forces in southern Iraq are increasing but Iraqis have to start looking after themselves, the head of Denmark's military says.
General Hans Jesper Helso said that while conditions have improved in the Basra area, it was now time for the Iraqi security forces to start taking greater responsibility for their own security.
His comments came after Britain announced this week it would draw down its force in southern Iraq from 7,000 to about 5,000 troops.
<b>Denmark immediately followed, announcing it would withdraw most of its 460-strong force from southern Iraq, leaving 50 troops who would continue to operate helicopters.</b>
<b>But General Helso told ABC Radio there had been an increase in bomb, rocket and small-arms attacks on foreign forces in the Basra area.</b>
"The increase on the attacks on the coalition forces tells me that there are at least some people in the south as well as elsewhere in Iraq who would like to see the coalition gone," he said.
But it was too early to say if the removal of foreign forces would lead to a reduction in violence, he said.
(Iraq will be left fertile for Talibanism or Wahabi extremism - with increased resentment towards the west. And there's already increased violence with Shias and Sunnis killing each other on a near-daily basis.)
"There will always be a risk. When we have left the area with ground troops and when the UK has reduced, it will be wrong to say there will be no IEDs (bombs) and things like that because there will always be an internal fight going on," he said.
"But the Iraqis have to deal with that themselves."
General Helso said Basra was definitely a better place than it was four years ago.
"There are more smiles on the faces of the people. They are more democratic. There are small scale democratic movements going on," he said.
"More schools have been reconstructed. The watering system of the marsh has been improved dramatically. In my opinion very clearly it is a better region than when we arrived."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Come on. If people helped to make a mess of Iraq (it's unstable now, so it's worse than it was in when Saddam's dictatorship was holding it together with an iron fist), then they should stick around until they've sorted things out. At the very least, they ought to try something to diffuse Shia-Sunni animosity, if that were possible.
Else there will be festering resentment and 50 years down the track when some western country suffers another major terrorist attack, everyone will be going: why in the world did that happen? As if it came out of the blue.
You have to finish what you start, see it through to the end. Else it could come back and haunt you.
I expected more from Denmark, even if it was merely one of the minor players in the invade-and-'reconstruct'-Iraq.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070221/2/12hxk.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Friday February 23, 08:28 AM
<b>Iraqis must police themselves: Denmark</b>
Attacks against coalition forces in southern Iraq are increasing but Iraqis have to start looking after themselves, the head of Denmark's military says.
General Hans Jesper Helso said that while conditions have improved in the Basra area, it was now time for the Iraqi security forces to start taking greater responsibility for their own security.
His comments came after Britain announced this week it would draw down its force in southern Iraq from 7,000 to about 5,000 troops.
<b>Denmark immediately followed, announcing it would withdraw most of its 460-strong force from southern Iraq, leaving 50 troops who would continue to operate helicopters.</b>
<b>But General Helso told ABC Radio there had been an increase in bomb, rocket and small-arms attacks on foreign forces in the Basra area.</b>
"The increase on the attacks on the coalition forces tells me that there are at least some people in the south as well as elsewhere in Iraq who would like to see the coalition gone," he said.
But it was too early to say if the removal of foreign forces would lead to a reduction in violence, he said.
(Iraq will be left fertile for Talibanism or Wahabi extremism - with increased resentment towards the west. And there's already increased violence with Shias and Sunnis killing each other on a near-daily basis.)
"There will always be a risk. When we have left the area with ground troops and when the UK has reduced, it will be wrong to say there will be no IEDs (bombs) and things like that because there will always be an internal fight going on," he said.
"But the Iraqis have to deal with that themselves."
General Helso said Basra was definitely a better place than it was four years ago.
"There are more smiles on the faces of the people. They are more democratic. There are small scale democratic movements going on," he said.
"More schools have been reconstructed. The watering system of the marsh has been improved dramatically. In my opinion very clearly it is a better region than when we arrived."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Come on. If people helped to make a mess of Iraq (it's unstable now, so it's worse than it was in when Saddam's dictatorship was holding it together with an iron fist), then they should stick around until they've sorted things out. At the very least, they ought to try something to diffuse Shia-Sunni animosity, if that were possible.
Else there will be festering resentment and 50 years down the track when some western country suffers another major terrorist attack, everyone will be going: why in the world did that happen? As if it came out of the blue.
You have to finish what you start, see it through to the end. Else it could come back and haunt you.
I expected more from Denmark, even if it was merely one of the minor players in the invade-and-'reconstruct'-Iraq.