Final British forces leave Iraq

[pampango]

Source: Euronews

The last British forces left Iraq on Sunday after eight years.

Marines from the Royal Navy stayed on after the end of combat operations to help train Iraqi soldiers.

The last British combat troops left their southern base of Basra in April 2009.

Under former prime minister Tony Blair, Britain joined the US in the operation to remove Saddam Hussein in April 2003. A total of 179 British service personnel died during the campaign and an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

Read more: http://www.euronews.net/2011/05/22/final-british-forces-leave-iraq/

[Poll_Blind]

1. Does that just leave 3 more countries: We, Ourselves and US?

Or do we have a half-dozen members of the Vanuatu military marching band with us?

:shrug:

PB

[rug]

2. The Vanuatans are staying indefinitely to train the Iraqi marching band.

[Poll_Blind]

7. Thing about the Iraqi marching band...they've got a hell of a percussion section.

PB

[struggle4progress]

12. I thought Vanuatu's contribution, to the bush coalition, was limited to offering slit gong lessons

to any Iraqis who happened to visit Port Vila

I could be wrong. It's been a while, and my memory isn't what it used to be

[Pterodactyl]

6. The NATO Training Mission is still present. About 150 from various countries.

[Demeter]

3. It will be worth losing the empire, so that we can bring our people home, too.

[xchrom]

4. +1 - Rome must have felt the same. Nt

[liberation]

5. I thought references about Rome were funny...

... until I realized our most watched sport consists of basically XX century chariots going around an oval track, and then they got real scary.

[AndiMer]

8. Britain Ends Iraq Mission, Withdraws Military Forces

Source: HP

BAGHDAD -- The last of Britain's military forces in Iraq pulled up anchor Sunday, ending more than eight years of fighting militants and training security forces since invading in 2003.

Eighty-one Royal Navy sailors turned over the task of patrolling waters off the southern port city of Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf to Iraq's fledgling navy. It was the last hands-on mission that British troops had in Iraq since combat forces pulled out of the southern city of Basra in July 2009.

Brig. Gen. Max Marriner, commander of British forces in Iraq, cited dramatic security gains across the country, and particularly in the south, that he said British troops helped make happen.

"Security has fundamentally improved and as a consequence, the social and economic development of the south has dramatically changed for the better, as too have people's lives," Marriner said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/britain-ends-iraq-mission_n_865212.html

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You listening, Washington?

[provis99]

9. all their soliders, dead for nothing.

Pointless war, useless deaths.

[emilyg]

10. All our soldiers, too.

[The Northerner]

11. The US should follow suit and NEVER repeat similar policies again

I hope.