British withdraw withdrawal plans

Didn't see much on this, but it is perhaps more telling about the situation in Iraq than stories of car bombings and assassinations:

However, a plan for British troops to hand over to local control two of Iraq's four southern provinces next month, and the remaining two in April next year, have been abandoned, according to defence sources. That would have left just 3,000 British troops in the country and saved about £500m.

The plan was described in a secret minute sent by Mr Reid to his cabinet colleagues last July as a "clear UK military aspiration". Sources close to Mr Reid were eager to point out yesterday that he had also said in his minute that the plan had not been "ministerially endorsed".

British military commanders are despondent about the lack of any prospect of a significant cutback in the number of British troops in Iraq for the forseeable future.

The British, unwilling to set a timetable that would aid our enemies, still had a plan to withdrawl some troops from Iraq. Now that plan has been completely scrapped with no hope of being revived in sight.

Why do I find this so telling? Well, it's clear that things aren't improving at the rate some were hoping it would, and that the goalposts are nowhere in sight. And even worse, there is no way to know if we can even reach those goalposts at this point either.

Iraq is clearly not ready for us to leave. The question is will it ever be?

*UPDATE* Of course, after this post comes this article from the Washington Post suggesting that Iraqi troops are getting better every day. The article does note that we still provide a huge amount of logistical support, and that the Iraqi troops may not have the full support of their countrymen:

Most of the forces "are from the Badr Organization and the pesh merga ," said Ibrahim Khalil, 20, one of about 4,000 Tall Afar residents, almost all of them Sunnis, living in a makeshift camp established by the Iraqi Red Crescent outside the city. He was referring to the country's predominant Shiite and Kurdish militias, respectfully.

"They wear the military uniform for disguise," he continued. "Their treatment is very bad. They were taking people to detention prisons just because they are Sunnis since the start of the military campaign."

The Iraqi soldiers from the pesh merga, which for many years was targeted by the Sunni-led army of former president Saddam Hussein and has long supported Kurdish forces fighting the Turkish government, spoke openly of their zeal to fight Tall Afar's Sunni Turkmen-led insurgency, according to U.S. soldiers who worked closely with them. Meanwhile, U.S. commanders grounded the mostly Shiite police commandos a few days into the operation, alleging overly aggressive tactics.

"The Iraqi army are the real terrorists. Even what they write on our walls is evidence, like 'Long live pesh merga' or 'Long live Badr,' " said Adnan Hussein, 39, who moved with his family to the camp for displaced residents. "They enter our houses and turn everything upside down. They scare our children."