British Start Pulling Out of Iraq

The British are leaving, the British are leaving!

Britain announced that they were pulling 800 troops out of Iraq in May of this year. They also went on to say that this was not a start of their withdrawal from Iraq. At about the same time the U.S. announced plans to send 700 more soldiers to Iraq. I can't help but wonder if I am the only one who made this connection. Why are the British leaving and not being transferred to where these 700 new American soldiers are going? Wouldn't it be easier to move them from one part of the country than to send new troops in?

Britain only has about 8000 soldiers in Iraq to begin with. This means that they are making a 10% withdrawal of troops in Iraq and we are supposed to think this is normal operating procedures. I find it horrifying to think that they have so few troops there to begin with. Aren't they supposed to be standing right beside us on the whole Iraq issue? Why do we have almost 150,000 troops on the ground and they have only 8,000? Didn't Bush say that we had a strong coalition of troops from around the world fighting with us in Iraq? Maybe Bush didn't have a lot of friends growing up and this is why he thinks we have a lot of help there.