Troop withdrawal from Iraq

The end is beginning. A British General is no longer in charge of the military in Basra and some more of our troops came home today. All a step in the right direction.

Whatever one thinks of the reasons for the War, and whatever one thinks of the politicians that took us to war, I hope many, if not most of the people of this country will be proud of the efforts made by our military over the last 6 years.

It hasn’t been perfect, but overall it has been a pretty good military performance. The troop build up pre -war was incredible, the war was short and successfully effective and the peace eventually delivered sufficient success for handover to local security forces.

Lessons will have been learnt and equipment failures corrected and importantly those lessons and equipment improvements will be of great value in Afghanistan

But whilst it is good to see the end beginning, overall I can’t help but think that this will not see a great change in the number of soldiers we have serving overseas. More are now likely to be deployed to Afghanistan and we can but pray that they  are eventually successful there.

And let us remember that the role of the military is to implement Foreign Policy – and that foreign policy is a political not military matter. Our troops will do what they can, but our politicians must not be allowed to let them down.