Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...rift with Washington, Blair averred that these moves would be in tune with the new-minted policy of the Bush Administration and were "informed by Baker-Hamilton." The situation in southern Iraq "has never presented anything like the challenge of Baghdad" and had now reached a point in Basra - however battered the city and its economy, however uncertain its security - where the British-led coalition forces there could contemplate handing over control to the Iraqi army. "What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be but that the next chapter of its history...
...securing the Iraq-Iran border and on supporting any operations against extremist groups. A troop presence will be maintained into 2008. But, said Blair, it was important for Iraqis to see that foreign troops would not be stationed in the country for longer than necessary - and thus the Basra example could even give a boost to the Bush plan...
...capacities. Aside from arming the opposition, the IRGC is capable of doing serious damage to our logistics lines. I called up an American contractor in Baghdad who runs convoys from Kuwait every day and asked him just how much damage. "Let me put it this way," he said. "In Basra today the currency is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar." He said his convoys now are forced to pay a 40% surcharge to Shi'a militias and Iraqi police in the south, many of whom are affiliated with IRGC...
...Ormond-King says the death rate has declined in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, with a population of some 1.5 million; in the past six months, the provision of electricity has increased to up to 18 hours a day; and there are signs of a nascent economy (part of the issue is that while the coalition is helping the Iraqi government produce four times more electrical power than during Saddam Hussein's reign, the economy is demanding six times as much power...
...unclear if Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Basra on his second trip to Iraq, was getting the same message in his closed-door meetings with U.S. and coalition commanders, including U.S. Army General George Casey and British Major General Jonathan Shaw, the senor officer in the region. The British government has indicated that it is likely to start withdrawing its contingent of some 7,000 troops in Iraq later this year...