Britain Likely to OK Troop Redeployment

An appeal by U.S. commanders for British troops to bolster American forces near Baghdad has sparked angry protests here, but Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon indicated in Parliament on Monday that the request would probably be approved this week.

Opposition politicians accused Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government of aiding President Bush’s reelection campaign by agreeing to redeploy British troops from southern Iraq so that American forces can carry out a planned offensive against Iraqi insurgents in Fallouja.

Hoon said the government would make its final decision based on a recommendation from its chief of defense staff, Gen. Michael Walker, after a reconnaissance assessment is completed today.

He denied that the decision to send the troops had already been made, but said that turning down the request, made Oct. 10, would mean “we will have failed in our duty as an ally.”

British troops would not be fighting in Baghdad or Fallouja, but would probably be used to shore up beleaguered areas on the southern rim of Baghdad, according to published reports, freeing up U.S. forces for what is expected to be a hard-fought campaign against insurgents in the so-called Sunni Triangle stronghold.

The defense secretary denied that the appeal was meant to give a political boost to Bush’s reelection. Rather, Hoon said, it was strictly “operational” and a military matter.

Blair has been criticized in Britain for leading his country to war based on claims, now discredited, that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in as little as 45 minutes.

Although the British leader has apologized repeatedly in recent weeks for relying on faulty intelligence, he has defended the removal of Hussein and refused to back away from the war itself.

With 9,000 troops in Iraq, the largest contingent after the United States, which has 140,000, Britain has lost 68 soldiers -- 45 under hostile fire. For most of the war, British forces have been concentrated in the south of the country, around Basra, and have not seen the same scale of fighting as American troops.

War opponents in Parliament disagreed with Hoon’s assertion that the request was not political. “If it’s done before Nov. 2, it’s political. It’s handing President Bush a lifeline,” said Dennis Skinner, a Labor Party backbencher.

Nicholas Soames, the Conservative shadow defense secretary, hinted over the weekend that the troop redeployment was being sought now because the United States was planning an assault before the U.S. election.

According to news reports, about 650 experienced combat troops from the Black Watch regiment would be moved from Basra to near Iskandariya, in the volatile area just south of Baghdad that is on the border between Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities.

The Times of London, in an editorial Monday, called for the request to be approved.

“The claim that British forces are being switched around in an effort by Mr. Blair to boost the President’s reelection attempt is juvenile and demeaning,” the newspaper said. “Does it really help Mr. Bush’s cause that U.S. troops are in need of ‘reinforcement’? It is the Iraqi polls in January, not the U.S. ballot next month, that is behind the timing of this redeployment.”

Another conservative paper, the Telegraph, endorsed the redeployment, but called for clear rules of engagement, noting that troops would be moving from essentially peacekeeping duties in Basra to “outright warfare” under American command.

“While there are always tensions when British troops serve under American generals, these are not insuperable: if they were, Europe would never have been liberated from Hitler,” the Telegraph said.

Antiwar feeling has been running high in Britain. On Sunday, protesters -- estimated by police at 20,000 people -- denounced what they called the “illegal occupation” of Iraq in a march to Trafalgar Square.

Former Foreign Minister Robin Cook was among antiwar politicians urging Blair to reject the U.S. commanders’ appeal.

“The real risk of sending a British battalion into the U.S. sector is that our troops could become associated in Iraqi minds with U.S. methods,” he told the Sunday Times. “The last time U.S. forces attacked Fallouja, they left 1,000 civilians dead and uproar across Iraq at their heavy-handed tactics.”