New Risks For UK Troops & Blair

Britain agreed Thursday to meet a U.S. request to move British troops into volatile central Iraq to free up American forces for a stepped-up assault on insurgents, a proposal that has met strong opposition within the governing Labor Party.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told lawmakers that military chiefs had concluded the level of risk to British soldiers was acceptable. The soldiers are moving from the relatively peaceful south to a zone where Sunni insurgents have been carrying out daily attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqis.

An armored battlegroup of 850 soldiers from the First Battalion Black Watch — complete with medics, signalers and engineers — will be redeployed for a "limited and specific period of time, lasting weeks rather than months" to relieve U.S. troops, Hoon said.

He did not say when the redeployment would begin and refused to give further details of the "location, duration or specifics of the mission" for security reasons. He said only that they would "deploy to an area within MNF (West)" — the western sector of the multinational force.

"After careful evaluation, the chiefs of staff have advised me that U.K. forces are able to undertake the proposed operation, that there is a compelling military operational justification for doing so, and that it entails a militarily acceptable level of risk for U.K. forces," Hoon said in a statement to the House of Commons.

"Based on this military advice, the government has decided that we should accept the U.S. request for assistance," Hoon added. "This deployment is a vital part of the process of creating the right conditions for the Iraqi elections to take place in January."

He said there were no plans to raise British troop numbers within Iraq.

The senior British commander in Iraq, however, said more British troops could be sent to the country to boost security ahead of the Iraqi elections.

"There may be a request to surge additional forces into Iraq in the run-up to the elections — that has been discussed," Gen. John McColl was quoted as saying by The Times newspaper. "But it is no more than prudent planning at this stage."

U.S. military commanders asked on Oct. 10 whether Britain would send a unit currently stationed in southern Iraq to the U.S.-controlled sector farther north.

British ministers said the move would free up American forces to intensify their attacks on insurgents as the coalition tries to stabilize Iraq ahead of elections in January.

But some lawmakers are deeply suspicious it is a political gesture to provide cover for President Bush in the closing days of the U.S. presidential race. Mr. Bush has faced repeated accusations from Democratic nominee John Kerry that America is providing the vast majority of troops in Iraq, and suffering the lion's share of casualties.

Some suggest the redeployment would help Mr. Bush to reassure voters that U.S. troops were not alone in Iraq's most volatile areas.

On Wednesday, 45 lawmakers, all but one of them members of Blair's Labor Party, signed a motion demanding a vote in the House of Commons on whether the request should be granted.

"We are about to enter a period of increased activity in Iraq. This is nothing to do with the American elections," Blair told the House of Commons. "It has everything to do with the Iraqi elections in January."

Britain has some 9,000 troops in Iraq, operating in the relatively peaceful area around the southern port city of Basra.

Sending British soldiers into the U.S.-controlled sector, where there are more attacks by insurgents, carries a risk of higher casualties and would be politically sensitive for Blair.

Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.

The 44 Labor lawmakers signing the motion represent around a tenth of Labor's 407 members of Parliament. Although statistically small, the number includes more than a dozen backbenchers usually loyal to the government.

Labor backbencher Marsha Singh urged Blair to refuse the U.S. request. He said the "hole dug over Iraq is big enough" and suggested it was time Blair listened to the British people and "high time we stopped digging."

Blair said he did not agree.

"I believe we are right to be in Iraq. I believe we can be immensely proud of the contribution our British troops have made there," he responded.

Blair has weathered a chain of crises over the war, which was always less popular in Britain than in the United States. The invasion tested already strained ties between the moderate Blair and his party's left wing, and added to an impression among some Britons that Blair is too close to Mr. Bush.

Even before the war began, Labor members in large numbers rebelled against Blair on key votes. According to the Bob Woodward book "Plan of Attack," Mr. Bush feared Blair's government would fall and repeatedly gave Blair the option of withdrawing his troops from the invasion force. Blair refused.

Since the war started, Blair's troubles have multiplied as weapons hunters came up empty.

The British case for war began unraveling last year, when a document backing the government's case for war turned out to have been plagiarized from a dated student thesis.

Another document, which claimed that Iraq had the ability to launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes, touched off a huge feud between Downing Street and the BBC.

"The beeb" reported the claim had been "sexed-up" by Blair's aides; Blair vehemently denied it. The source for the story, weapons expert David Kelly, committed suicide.

Subsequent reports said the BBC had misreported the story, but also concluded that Blair and his staff had stretched the intelligence on Iraq to the limits of credibility.