Word: troop
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...government in Beirut and representatives of Hizballah, who want to topple it. Riyadh is also suppressing the price of oil, in what many observers see as a bid to undermine Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by starving his government of cash. And the Saudis have quietly backed the U.S.'s troop surge in Iraq. Every place in the Middle East that matters, it seems, Riyadh is leading, and Washington is following right behind...
...opponents sought to highlight splits opening within Labour ranks as its pols jockey for position in anticipation of the Prime Minister's looming departure. But it was a deeper gulf that yawned as Blair used the occasion to shift Britain's Iraq strategy, announcing a planned reduction in troop levels by 1,500 over the coming months from some 7,100 at present, with the aim of pushing overall numbers below 5,000 by the end of the year. Answering unspoken accusations that this signaled a rift with Washington, Blair averred that these moves would be in tune with...
...that just as the U.S. is gearing up its military presence in Iraq, Britain is looking toward the exit. The slimmed-down U.K. forces will concentrate on the training and support of Iraqi soldiers, on 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...
...According to a spokesman for Britain's Ministry of Defense, any troop reductions themselves still represent "an aspiration." Blair made clear to the Commons that the speed of the drawdown would be determined by ongoing assessments of the security situation. Certainly, he knows that he won't be there to oversee the final departure of British forces from Iraq. The former Europe Minister Denis MacShane, leaving the chamber at the end of the question-and-answer session, welcomed "the reduction of British troops in Iraq" and "a mission partly accomplished in Basra," but suggested that aspects of the insurgency...
...That perceived lack of solidarity from Washington - busy thanking Tokyo's rival Beijing for its decisive efforts at the talks - is especially galling given the Japanese government's steadfast support for the war in Iraq, up to and including President George W. Bush's recent "surge" in troop levels. But there are problems coming from Japan's side of the Pacific as well. Cheney pointedly did not find time to meet with Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, who last month criticized the U.S. occupation of Iraq as a mistake, and termed Washington's attitude on intergovernmental negotiations over changing troop...