PRESS RELEASE
A Looming U.S.-U.K. Split Over Iran War Redeployments?
Sept. 16, 2007 (EIRNS)—The London Sunday Telegraph, as part of its all-out drive for new wars in Southwest Asia, has reported that Gen. David Petraeus, the Coalition Commander in Iraq, is going to visit London this week, to brief Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other top British officials on the perspective on Iraq. According to the spin-meisters at the Telegraph, General Petraeus is going to press the British government to cancel plans to withdraw the remaining 5,000 British troops from Iraq, and, instead, post them near the Iraq-Iran border, to cut the flow of weapons to insurgents in Iraq. The Labour government, according to the Tory-graph, is anxious to pull out of Iraq altogether, and under no circumstances is interested in getting dragged into a nasty war with Iran; however, pressure from the Coalition Commander may be impossible to refuse. General Petraeus's hardest sell may be Gen. Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, who has insisted that Britain is not capable of maintaining its military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time, and that British troops should leave Iraq by year's end.
U.S. intelligence sources have told Executive Intelligence Review a different story. They warn that the British are pursuing a policy of "managed chaos" for all of Southwest Asia, and the British withdrawal of troops from Iraq will saddle the United States with a further mess in Shi'ite-dominated southern Iraq, where the British "turned over the keys" to rival Shi'ite militias who are engaged in high-intensity gang warfare, which the United States is ill prepared to deal with. The source said it was unclear whether there was a consensus among the British oligarchy in favor of drawing the United States into a direct war with Iran, but under any circumstances, the Brits would not be involved this time around. One U.S. source strongly emphasized that the British are unanimous that any U.S.-Russian cooperation must be stopped at all costs, and that sticking the United States with an even bigger mess in the Persian Gulf region would drive a wedge between Washington and Moscow, that would suit London interests.
