Blair Sets an Iraq Timetable

Yes, there it is. The dirty word. The "t" word - "timetable". And Tony Blair's government is finally caving to massive public pressure to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Tony Blair will put pressure on the Iraqi government today to demonstrate that its security forces will be ready to take over from the British army in southern provinces within roughly a year.

Amid mounting international concern over escalating violence, Mr Blair is expected to use today's Downing Street talks with Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, to discuss plans for an exit strategy for British troops, with some ministers openly contemplating withdrawal inside a year.

In an attempt to demonstrate that the British army will not be bogged down in Iraq indefinitely, the defence secretary, Des Browne, said yesterday he expected that Iraq's security forces would have the capacity within a year to take over from British forces, a point also pushed home by the Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells. Mr Howells said: "I would have thought that certainly in a year or so there will be adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces - policemen and women and so on - in order to do the job."

Heads were heard exploding across the pond in Washington at the news that Bush's poodle could not hang in long enough to prop up Bush's 'stay the course' death march in Iraq until he [Blair] leaves office next year. This will, of course, provide even more fodder for the GOP's political opponents and even those in their ranks who are finally speaking out against such a disastrous policy, to expose Bush as being incapable of any flexibility and in complete defiance of the reasoning of its closest ally to this point, Britain.

Expect the spin on Monday by Bush's press secretary Tony Snow to be along the lines of "but, we're constantly changing tactics" in a lame attempt to excuse an administration and party that has absolutely no exit strategy while pressuring al Maliki to fix everything for them which, at this time, seems to be a political impossibility without any fresh thinking added to the situation.

A story in Sunday's New York Times about the possibility of the Bush administration also considering a timetable with the same considerations as this revelation from the Brits was flatly denied by the White House, but that denial was not as cut and dried as it appears to be. There is no doubt that Bushco is placing tremendous pressure on al Maliki as well, but it is also more than likely that they have also set a timetable for him to make major changes in Iraq under the threat of US withdrawal.

If the situation in Iraq continues to get worse, which is inevitable, al Maliki will be made the fall guy while Bush and Blair wipe their hands of the entire experiment which has failed so miserably under their watch and that will set them both up for their arrogant stance of so-called plausible deniability of any responsibility for the horrors they created.