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Bush announces fewer troops in Iraq, more for Afghanistan

Article published on the 2008-09-09 Latest update 2008-09-10 09:11 TU

Bush ahead of the announcement(Photo: Retuers)

Bush ahead of the announcement
(Photo: Retuers)

US President George Bush has announced that he will pull 8,000 troops out of Iraq by February 2009 and increase the US troop presence in Afghanistan by 4,500. Bush praised US soldiers and their allies in both countries and claimed that “the terrorists will suffer the same fate in Afghanistan as they are now suffering in Iraq and they will be defeated.”

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With the war in both countries hotly debated in the US presidential campaign, Bush has cut back in Iraq and built up in Afghanistan, as now advocated by both Republican and Democrat candidates.

In Iraq the US troop reduction will leave the American presence at 138,000, the same amount as before the "surge" began.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi, describes the proposal as minimal and believes it is dictated by US domestic concerns.

"We know that the American candidate for presidency, Barack Obama, is talking about a timetable to pull out the troops from Iraq in 18 months time," he told RFI. "So it seems President Bush would like to say ‘Also I am trying to pull out my troops by February'."

Comment: Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al Quds al Arabi

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10/09/2008 by Judith Prescott

Bush said that the fight would go on there to “allow our troops to come home to victory”.

But he said success in Afghanistan was "critical to global security" and said that President Hamid Karzai's government intends to double the size of the Afghan army.

Regretting accidental civilian deaths in Afghanistan, which have caused angry anti-American protests, Bush said that such losses are "always the case in warfare".

Turning to Afghanistan's neighbour, Pakistan, Bush declared, “These extremists are increasingly using Pakistan as a base to launch their attacks against democracy.”

He pledged the “full support of America’s government as Pakistan takes the fight to these terrorists and extremists”, but added that "defeating these terrorists and extremists is also Pakistan’s responsibility.”