The U.K. and Aus. will not offer troops for a 'surge'?

[deacon]

Why??? Why won't blair supply more troops after coming here and backing bush yet again only a few weeks ago? So, it's all right for him to come here and say, expend your troops America, but we won't help?

Howard and Blair say this: ' We support you doing what we won't do after making this war a reality'

Our coalition of the willing, and whats left of it says- 'okay, YOU do it'

Fire up YOUR troops Blair and Howard or don't comment on what's going on within this government.

This idea of surge is wrong,period. And, if bush does get his way, how about you both shaddup.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. No-one in Britain has expected more British troops to be sent for a moment

The 'surge' is the policy of Bush, and whatever generals he can hand-pick to agree with him on it. Blair is more aligned with the Iraq Study Group.

[deacon]

3. He supported this from the beginning, and now he backs bush

and bails out. Dammit, I thought he loved this Iraq war. And now......we get 'you fight it'. Additionally, Howard the Coward says he backs a 'surge' by US, but won't assist with troops.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. If Bush asketh, Howard will giveth...

That's how it usually goes. Howard's so far up Bush's arse you can't even see his shoelaces. The thing is that there's only around 800 Australian troops in Iraq and it's a purely symbolic attempt to make it look like there's a coalition, when in reality around 98% of the troops in Iraq are American and British...

[deacon]

4. Just think, if both of these other two blowhards would contribute

20,000 troops to the escalation it would be shared for a total of at least 60,000 troops. They chickened out.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. There's only 26,000 troops in the military here...

Y'know, our population isn't anywhere near the size of the US or the UK...

[BR_Parkway]

6. What about Poland, you forgot Poland.....

[LeftishBrit]

7. Two comments here

(1) Our army is nothing like the size of America's, so even if Britain wished to 'surge' the troops, there wouldn't be enough to make much difference - unless we either withdrew totally from other existing commitments, or instituted a draft. And neither of these is going to happen. Note that the British people are VERY strongly opposed to this war.

(2) Tony won't be PM in six months' time, and Gordon Brown, whatever his faults, has other ambitions in life than getting as far up Bush's arse as possible. So I think Bush can more-or-less count Britain out, as regards much future active support for his wars.