Iraq : Blair Retreats From Basra

UK Army's Own Maps Give Lie To Blair's Claim Of "Remarkable Progress"

There are numerous reasons why UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has decided to begin withdrawing British troops from Iraq, but the "remarkable progress" he cites having been made in Basra is probably the least of them.

Residents of Basra are torn over the pullout. Some fear revenge attacks from the more brutal elements of the Iraqi Army and police force, others claim that the presence of UK troops made the violence only worse, encouraging attacks and insurgents. Others still claim that UK troops, or British undercover operatives, were behind bombings and assassinations.

The plan, as outlined by Tony Blair, is to withdraw almost 2000 British troops from Iraq within months, with more to leave by Christmas. A few thousand will remain through 2008, but analysts are predicting the Brits will slowly, but steadily, reduce overall numbers through next year.

The Americans and the Australian supporters of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq are frantically trying to spin the announcement as a sign of progress and success, proposing that Basra is now calm and secure enough to be handed over to the Iraqi Army and police forces.

But the British are actually pulling out of the city back into their barracks, where they will mostly stay while the withdrawals take place.

US Vice President, Dick Cheney, was his usual acerbic self talking about troop withdrawals around the same time as Blair made his announcement :

I want you to know that the American people will not support a policy of retreat. We want to complete the mission, we want to get it done right, and we want to return with honour."

Likewise, the Australian prime minister, foreign minister and defence minister, claimed they were all aware of the coming announcement by Tony Blair, but spent most of the past week hammering any talk of withdrawing troops from Iraq "before the job is done."


Juan Cole claims the withdrawal of troops from Basra "is a rout" :

"There should be no mistake. The fractious Shiite militias and tribes of Iraq's South have made it impossible for the British to stay. They already left Sadr-controlled Maysan province, as well as sleepy Muthanna. They moved the British consulate to the airport because they couldn't protect it in Basra. They are taking mortar and rocket fire at their bases every night. Raiding militia HQs has not resulted in any permanent change in the situation. Basra is dominated by 4 paramilitaries, who are fighting turf wars with one another and with the Iraqi government over oil smuggling rights.

Blair is not leaving Basra because the British mission has been accomplished. He is leaving because he has concluded that it cannot be, and that if he tries any further it will completely sink the Labor Party, perhaps for decades to come.

From the London Times :

On military charts, significant swaths of the southern city are security coded scarlet, for unsatisfactory. Other zones are marked green, satisfactory, or amber, between the two.

Levels of violence and anticoalition attacks are far lower in the Shia-dominated south than the Sunni triangle around Baghdad. But British casualties have been increasing over the last year, with more than ten soldiers killed and 60 injured since November.

Britain’s phased exit from Iraq has begun at an extraordinary time: security in Basra is worse now than it was three years ago Michael Evans, Defence Editor.

Either way, the move will answer the question about whether the continuing presence of coalition troops in areas with no insurgency comparable to the north has been acting as a magnet for violence.

Followers of the radical Shia cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr — whose Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the Islamist intimidation and accused by British forces of launching many of the bomb attacks on them — predicted that Basra would soon become calm.

“The militias and militant groups in these areas only fired their weapons at the occupier and when they go, all of the violence here will end,” Salam al-Maliki, a Sadrist official, said.

Shia leaders in Baghdad, eager to fix their grip on power, applauded the announcement. “The withdrawal is the wish of the Iraqi Government and all the political powers in the country,” Sami al-Askari, an MP close to the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said.

But in Amara, the capital of Maysan province which Britain intends to hand over to Iraqi forces within months, Jabr al-Nuaimi, 40, said he felt the British had abandoned the city to the Mahdi army since withdrawing from bases around the city last September.

“The British troops left the city under pressure from the Mahdi army because there were a lot of mortars fired at their bases,” he told The Times.

“People hoped the British would control the city with a strong hand, but in reality all they cared about was protecting themselves.”

Although there is no Sunni-Shia carnage to compare with Baghdad, the Shia-dominated south has been torn by a cutthroat internal competition for power that has turned bloody. Since August, both Diwaniyah and Amara have been convulsed by clashes between the mainly Shia Iraqi Army, and Sadr’s militia.

Basra has seen the worst of the violence. Locals believe the drive-by shootings and assassinations have been fuelled by the struggle among the city’s Shia political parties for control of the Basra region’s oil reserves. Optimists hope that the Iraqi Army, while bedevilled by the same corruption, militia infiltration and political interference as other institutions, will inspire confidence more than the militia-dominat-ed police, in a country traditionally proud of its armed forces.

Patrick Cockburn writes in the UK Independent :

It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger.

In fact the civil war is getting worse by the day. Food is short in parts of the country. A quarter of the population would starve without government rations. Many Iraqis are ill because their only drinking water comes from the highly polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Nowhere in Mr Blair's statement was any admission of regret for reducing Iraq to a wasteland from which 2 million people have fled and 1.5 million are displaced internally.

Mr Blair gave the impression that the presence of US and British forces is popular among Iraqis. In fact an opinion poll cited by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton report of senior Democrats and Republicans in Washington showed that 61 per cent of Iraqis favour armed attacks on US and British forces.

Mr Blair painted a picture of Iraq in which political and economic progress is only being hampered by mindless terrorists. He claimed that the aim of these groups was "to prevent Iraq's democracy from working". But one of the main problems is that the constitution and two elections in 2005 have embedded differences between Sunni, Shia and Kurds.

The Prime Minister said there were 130,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army and 135,000 in the police force. He showed only limited appreciation, however, of the extent to which these forces are allied to the Shia militias or the Sunni insurgents.

British, Australian and American government officials can spin the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq however they like, even calling it "a reduction of troops", but history will record these events as a defeat for the British in Iraq, and the final death knell for the unity of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq.


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Beginning Of The End For Brits In Iraq?

British Troops To Begin Pullout From Iraq War

White House Spins UK Pullout As Sign Of "Success" And "Stability"

All British Troops Out Of Iraq By End Of 2008

On Tuesday, UK prime minister Tony Blair talked to US President George W. Bush by phone and told him he was planning to announce the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.

Blair is set to announce today a withdrawal timetable that is expected to see some 1500 UK troops return home within weeks, and at least half of all 7000 deployed troops to be out of Iraq by Christmas.

The UK Guardian claims all British troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2008.

In January, Blair reacted to calls from Liberal Democrats to set a timetable for withdrawal with the following words :

"to set an arbitrary timetable... that we will pull British troops out in October, come what may... would send the most disastrous signal to the people we are fighting in
Iraq."

Blair is believed to have changed his mind for a variety of reasons, including intelligence reports that the UK presence is inflaming sectarian fighting, instead of quelling it, and the likelihood that Blair is to soon hand over the prime ministership to successor Gordon Brown, who hasn't a chance of winning the next UK election with the Iraq War hanging over his head.

A White House spokesman said the US viewed the British withdrawal as "a success" and a sign of increasing stability inside Iraq.

From abc.net.au :

"The President is grateful for the support of the British forces in the past and into the future," (the White House spokesman said).

"While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis.

"The United States shares the same goal of turning responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces and reducing the number of American troops in Iraq."

From the BBC :

BBC political correspondent James Landale said: "We have been expecting an announcement for some time on this."

However, he said reports that all troops will have returned home by the end of 2008 was "not a fair representation of what is true at the moment".

Our correspondent said senior Whitehall sources had told him that the pullout was "slightly slower" than they had expected and "if conditions worsen this process could still slow up".

From the UK Guardian :

The prime minister is expected to say that Britain intends to gradually reduce the number of troops in southern Iraq over the next 22 months as Iraqi forces take on more responsibility for the security of Basra and the surrounding areas.

Ministers have taken on board the message coming from military chiefs over many months - namely that the presence of British troops on the streets of Basra is increasingly unnecessary, even provocative.

The reduction of just 1,000 by early summer cited by officials yesterday is significantly less than anticipated in reports that British troops in southern Iraq, presently totalling 7,200, would be cut by half by May.

A more cautious reduction may reflect concern expressed by the Iraqi and US governments about British intentions.

The US has privately admonished Britain claiming it is interested only in Basra. British ministers and officials say the situation in the Shia-dominated south cannot be compared to Baghdad, which is plagued by Sunni-Shia sectarian violence.

Under the plan due to be outlined by Mr Blair, British troops will gradually move into a single base on the outskirts of Basra. They will continue to take part in operations but in a role supporting Iraqi security forces rather than leading them, according to defence officials.

They will also continue operating long range desert patrols in Maysan province, north of Basra, along the border with Iran - a mission pressed on Britain by the US which says it is concerned about the smuggling of weapons from Iran. By the end of next year, all but a few army instructors will have left the country.

NORE TO COME....

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Mahathir Praises Iraq Resistance, Calls For More Dead Americans

"...How Useless Are The Sacrifices Of The Young Men Sent To Iraq"

The former Malaysian premier, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, recently hosted a three day, unofficial 'war crimes trial' in Kuala Lumpur. The international court at The Hague was a uesless venue to try President Bush and UK PM Tony Blair for being "killers of children", said Dr Mahathir, because it was "biased".

During his speech at the mock trial, Dr Mahathir rolled out a long stream of praise and wishes for greater success for what he called the "Iraq Resistance".

From Middle East Online :

"Carry on with your resistance... make sure that the Americans will pay a very high price for their adventure....When you do this, unfortunately you may have to kill a lot of Americans. When the coffins go back, when the body bags are carried back to America, it will help the Americans to change their minds..."

"I'm quite sure that as more and more American soldiers get killed in Iraq, the feelings in America will change and they will begin to see, as they saw during the Vietnam War, how futile, how useless are the sacrifices of the young men sent to Iraq," he said.

"Twenty-three thousand more will be going. They will be going to Iraq and many of them are going to die, they are going to go back in their coffins. And when Americans see coffins coming back they will understand what war is all about. "That is why I congratulate the Iraqi resistance. Carry on. You have been successful...."

"Iraqi resistance has proven that it is not so easy to just walk into Iraq and take things over...If America thinks that it is going to take Iraq and use it as a base to threaten the countries around the Gulf, (so as to) not to sell oil to China, the Iraqi resistance has proven that the Americans are wrong...."

These comments, even more than the mock trials themselves, received enormous coverage in Arab and Muslim media across the world, but only passing interest from key media in Australia, the US and the UK, the three chief partners in the Coalition of the Willing.

It is important to note this widespread exposure of Mahathir's attempt to rally international support behind the Iraqi resistance because it gives great insight into how the War On Iraq is viewed by many of the world's one billion, or more, Muslims and Arabs.

Clearly, they are not the only people who feel the War On Iraq was wrong or misguided or a clear violation of Iraq's sovereignty, but there are few calls heard in the West in support of the resistance by Iraqis to American -led invasion and occupation.

The view in Arab and Muslim countries, however, is overwhelmingly in favour of Iraqis right to resist what is increasingly seen as the Coalition of the Willing's growing presence and military build-up in Iraq, and in the Middle East in general.

Recent polling in Iraq indicates that some 9 out of 10 Sunnis support attacks on coalition forces, while, more generally, 4 out of 10 of all Iraqis also favour violent insurgency against American and British forces. More than 70% of Iraqis want all "foreign" forces to leave their country sooner rather than later.


It will come as no surprise that the 'criminals' under focus in the Dr Mahathir led mock war crimes trial were US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, former Israeli leader Minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard.

One of the key intentions of the trial, attended by some high profile speakers, including a former UN high commissioner, was to catalogue "for the history books" hundreds of acts of claimed abuse and torture against Muslims in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq by American and Israeli soldiers, interrogators and intelligence operatives.

The series of speakers at last weekend's conference included victims of physical and sexual torture in Abu Ghraib and on US and British military bases in Afghanistan.

Dr Mahathir also used his speech to the 1500 strong audience gathered in Malaysia's capital to push his ongoing campaign to "criminalise war," claiming war was now only a brutal way for Western arms manufacturers, and in particular the families and friends of President Bush, to make money.

Dr Mahathir also called on world public opinion, overwhelmingly against the continuation of the War On Iraq, to spread the simple concept that "War is not an option. War is not a way of settling any dispute".

He described the strength of mostly united global opinion as "a superpower on par with the US".

Malaysia's foreign minister defended the speech supporting Iraqi resistance :

"I think (Dr Mahathir) has taken that approach and I would not say that the Government supports nor objects to it," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said, adding that Dr Mahathir was free to express his views as a "citizen of Malaysia".

"This is a free and democratic country and it's very nice to see freedom being exercised," he said.

From the International Herald Tribune :

Malaysia's government sought to distance itself on Thursday from a war tribunal set up by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to try world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, for alleged war crimes.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Mahathir's move was an "independent effort" and would not hurt Malaysia's ties with the U.S. and other countries whose leaders were also accused of committing crimes against humanity.

"Even in the (United) States, there are groups who don't agree with the war," he told reporters. "If you are mature enough in international relations, we must allow for existence of differing views."

For an insight into the kinds of displays and visual information on display during the three day conference, there is this report from the BBC :

The message is made quite clear by an exhibition staged in parallel with the conference. Its style is Madame Tussauds on a shoestring, and it features tableaux illustrating the carnage of the world wars, the Palestinian problem, Vietnam and of course Iraq.

There's a section comprising a cage and a couple of dummies wired up to electrodes with the song Rivers of Babylon pumping away in the background.

A helpful notice tells us that the "cheerful" music of Boney M was used as an instrument of torture in the Iraq prison at Abu Ghraib.

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AFGHAN DESERT KEY TO FUTURE OF THE WORLD, BLAIR TELLS BRITISH TROOPS

MUSHARRAF RIPS BLAIR, US-LED WAR ON TERROR

The War On Afghanistan is not going well, and UK PM Tony Blair is spinning his black little heart out. At the same time, a covert war on Pakistan by Western intelligence agencies, led by the CIA, is already underway.

From the London Times :

Tony Blair pledged Britain's continuing support for war-torn Afghanistan until after the Taleban is defeated during a press conference in Kabul today with President Karzai.

The Prime Minister flew into Afghanistan this morning amid tight security in a show of support for the UK force which has seen some of the heaviest fighting by British troops since the Second World War.

His visit, in which he earlier met British troops at Camp Bastion this morning, makes him the first Western leader to meet Mr Karzai in Kabul.

During the joint press conference, Mr Blair stressed the importance of international support to stabilise and rebuild the country following the ousting of the Taleban five years ago.

"We believe that Afghanistan rather than being abused as a haven for terrorists and for the Taleban to oppress people, that Afghanistan and its people deserve the chance to increase their prosperity and to live in a proper democratic state.

"We will be with you in this endeavour. Our commitment remains that whatever challenges, whether of security or reconstruction or development, we are up to meeting those challenges with you."

Mr Blair used the press conference, ahead of a Nato summit in the Latvian capital Riga later this month, to urge that "now is the time to bring into sharp focus the need to stay with Afghans as they make their journey to progress."

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force has about 31,000 troops in Afghanistan including around 5,500 Britons.

British troops in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan have suffered the brunt of the heavy fighting and casualty rates are now higher than those in Iraq, with 36 killed since the beginning of this year.

A total of 41 British soldiers have been killed while serving in Afghanistan, of those 20 have been killed in action and 21 as a result of illness, non-combat injuries or accidents.

Asked whether the West had lost focus on Afghanistan, Mr Blair accepted that recent Taleban resistance had been stronger than expected over the summer but that it was important to show the progress that had been made.

"I think certainly from our perspective it’s important that we show the progress that’s being made to reenergise people, that it’s something that’s worth doing," he said.

Mr Blair said called the problem of opium farming in Afghanistan a "big, big challenge". Mr Karzai acknowledged that harvests of the drug in some parts of the country had increased, but said that it was "naïve" to think it can be wiped out overnight.

Mr Blair arrived in the country at Camp Bastion, the main UK base in the southern province of Helmand in a RAF Hercules transport aircraft.

It is Mr Blair’s second visit to the country. On the previous occasion in 2002 - shortly after the fall of the Taleban government - he was restricted to the Bagram air base.

His trip comes just a day after the West was accused by Pakistan of pursuing a failing strategy in Afghanistan by concentrating solely on military tactics.

But the West’s strategy in Afghanistan was attacked by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan yesterday, who and said that the task could not be achieved by military action alone.

He added that only Pakistan was implementing the right strategy. He called on the West to implement a plan of billions of dollars of aid to rebuild Afghanistan, just as the US spent billions of dollars rebuilding Europe after the Second World War.

Mr Blair flew to Pakistan on a mission to step up the battle against terrorism and gave warning that that it was a global battle that would take a generation to win.

In talks with General Musharraf , Mr Blair offered £480 million to combat the preaching of hatred in Pakistani religious schools and the two leaders agreed further co-operation against Taleban militants in Afghanistan.

But Mr Musharraf said that the war "cannot be won through military action alone, you have to come up with a broader strategy. This strategy must involve a political element and reconstruction or development."

Reacting angrily to accusations that he was not doing enough to stop the Taleban crossing the border to safe havens in Pakistan’s largely lawless northwest provinces, Mr Musharraf turned the tables on Britain and America by declaring:

"We are the only one who are trying to implement the whole strategy, which means military, political, and also reconstruction. More action is required on the Afghanistan side, because the war will be won on the Afghan side, because the Taleban problem is on the Afghan side."

He added: "I have indicated to the Prime Minister also that we believe there is a requirement for a massive inflow of developmental funds there, some kind of a Marshall Plan, some billions of dollars."

Mr Blair agreed that reconstruction had to go hand in hand with the military action, but said that despite suffering enormous casualties at the hands of British troops, the Taleban would still try to take back control of some parts of the country. "The Taleban will try to get a foothold back, they will, that is what we expect, but our will has got to be superior to theirs," he said.

He insisted the strategy was right, declaring that in the War on Terror, "we begin to win when we start fighting properly, and I think we are now fighting properly, but we have got to do more".

But in a gloomy prognosis, he said that the global battle against terrorism "took a generation to grow and will take a generation to defeat".

His spokesman said that the amount of aid was not the problem in Afghanistan, but that the fighting made it difficult to carry out reconstruction.

Britain alone had given £500 million while $10.5 billion was pledged at the International Donors Conference in London in January "The problem is not the lack of financial aid available. The problem is getting the physical infrastructure and government infrastructure in place to spend that money," Mr Blair said. He added that in Helmand province, Britain had built 13 health clinics, 89 reservoirs, 423 wells and eight classrooms.

From Rueters :

The security of the world will be decided on the desert battlefields of Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his troops on the frontline of an increasingly bloody war on Monday.

"Here, in this extraordinary desert, is where the future of world security in the early 21st century is going to be played out," Blair said in remarks barred from publication until he flew out of Camp Bastion in Helmand province.

Afghanistan's western allies say the Taliban is on the run, despite a resurgence, but Blair's long-planned visit has been kept in strict hour-by-hour secrecy due to security fears.

"You may not know this, but people back home are very proud of what you do, regardless what they think of political leaders," he told troops in the desert province that is a Taliban stronghold and the opium capital of the world's main producer.

Fighting in Afghanistan this year is the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban's hardline government exactly five years ago. The British troops in Helmand and other NATO troops in the south have been at the forefront of the combat.

And with the rise in fighting and a redeployment to the Taliban's southern heartland, British casualty rates here are now higher than those in Iraq, with 36 killed since June.

From the UK Independent :

The paraphernalia of death were laid out on the table - shrapnel, detonators, bombers' manual, false identification cards. "Enough for four, five suicide attacks" said General Ali Shah Paktiawal of the Afghan police.

"We are not allowed to blame Pakistan directly of course. But the men we caught were from Pakistan, these things were bought there. Look, they have even kept receipts."

This was Kabul yesterday, the capital of a country from which Tony Blair famously promised "this time we will not walk away", a land now torn by violence and wide-scale corruption, the heroin supplier to the world despite millions of dollars spent on eradication.

Five years after the American-led invasion, the infrastructure still lies shattered, with accusations of international aid being squandered. Meanwhile, the rights of half the population, women, are being steadily clawed back under the burqa.

Afghanistan is also where Western forces, in large numbers, are fighting a war which George Bush and Mr Blair had declared won with the fall of the Taliban regime as they moved the "war on terror" to Iraq.

The Taliban are back with a vengeance now and there is little talk of victory. Nato troops have inflicted heavy casualties on the insurgents, but military commanders talk of reinforcements coming from across the Pakistani border.

The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has accused Pakistan of sheltering the bombers and its intelligence service, the ISI, of arming and training them. Mr Bush and Mr Blair have raised the claims with Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, who vehemently denies them.

General Paktiawal was poisoned while in a government ministry four months ago, an example of the long reach of a ruthless enemy. He received emergency treatment abroad and is still on medication. He said: "Who did it, the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the ISI, working together? I do not want to say. What I do know is that I will be surprised if they do not try to kill me again.

"You cannot end terrorism quickly, especially when there are outside forces involved," he added. "I accept we have big problems."

From the UK Independent :

Tony Blair declared that Islamic terrorism would go on for at least a generation as he was urged by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to back a new "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan.

The Prime Minister admitted that a change of strategy by the West was needed to secure victory against Islamic extremists by winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Britain.

Speaking in Pakistan yesterday, Mr Blair promised a doubling in aid to £480m for Pakistan, partly intended for madrassas - Islamic schools - to help fight Islamic fundamentalism against the West. But he appeared to admit that the past strategy led by US policy had failed to stop the rise in terrorism.

"We begin to win when we start fighting properly. I think we are now fighting properly but we have got to do more," Mr Blair said. "This is about ideas and we have got to make our ideas powerful. It is about justice and where there is injustice we have to deal with it."

His remarks signalled a scaling back of expectations on the "war on terror"that launched with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, aimed at bringing down the Taliban and destroying Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida training camps. He said: "This took a generation to grow. It will take a generation to defeat."

Speaking in Pakistan during his tour of South Asia, after meeting moderate Muslim clerics, Mr Blair said: "In the end security measures are important but they can only take you so far. You have got to win hearts and minds as well. That is where we have got a lot more work to do." Mr Blair flew to the region to prepare for more wide-ranging measures to stop the collapse of Afghanistan, and to bolster support for the West's key ally in the area, President Musharraf, who is facing a Muslim backlash in his country for supporting the West.

President Musharraf said a modern-day Marshall Plan was needed for Afghanistan. The Marshall Plan - which was named after the US Secretary of State in the Truman government - spearheaded the post-war recovery of Europe with billions of dollars from America. Speaking after hour-long talks with the Prime Minister, including 20 minutes on their own, President Musharraf said they were united on all the key issues.

"We believe that there is a requirement for a massive inflow of development funds there. Some kind of Marshall Plan, some billions of dollars could be put in there for the reconstruction effort for the south-eastern region of Afghanistan which is under turmoil. Unless we understand the environment correctly, our strategy will never be correct."

Senior officials travelling with the Prime Minister made it clear that Mr Blair had not signed up to a massive increase in spending on Afghanistan. They pointed to a conference in London in January at which $10.5bn (£5.5bn) was pledged for reconstruction.

"In terms of a Marshall Plan we have always said you have to have the reconstruction going with the security. But it goes at different places. The security problem in the south-east is the greatest," said one official. "The problem is not having the money available, it is getting the infrastructure to spend that money."

President Musharraf admitted Pakistan had to "put our own house in order", with tougher measures to cut off support for the Taliban, but defended the border deals which have allegedly left the Taliban untouched in some areas. He insisted Pakistan would oppose the "Talibanisation" of Afghanistan or tribal areas of Pakistan.

Fact or fiction?

* BLAIR'S BOAST: 4.6 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan in the last five years.

* REALITY: Many have quietly left again, uncounted. Thousands more are internally displaced.

* BOAST: 25 per cent of MPs are now women.

* REALITY: Women MPs are targeted by the Taliban and fear for their lives.

* BOAST: 37 per cent of pupils at school are girls.

* REALITY: Entire provinces now give girls no education because schools have been burnt down, teachers killed and parents intimidated.

* BOAST: 60 per cent increase in the number of health clinics.

* REALITY: Many patients have to provide their own medicine and surgical equipment to qualify for treatment.

From the UK Independent :

Tony Blair flew into Pakistan last night on a mission to seek more co-operation from Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, on the war in terrorism in Britain.

Mr Blair announced a doubling in aid from £236m to £480m over the next three years to the Pakistan Government to support "moderate" schools in Pakistan. It is part of a strategy of undermining the hardline madrassas which are alleged to have brainwashed students in extremist forms of Islam and to have provided radical converts for al-Qa'ida operations in Britain.

The Prime Minister is also seeking improvements in intelligence-sharing between MI6 and Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, in spite of suspicions - denied by President Musharraf - that they have sympathies with the Taliban. British sources said it was intelligence from Pakistan that led to arrests and the summer alert over an alleged plot to blow up about 10 airliners bound for the United States from British airports.

One million people in Britain are of Pakistani origin. Two of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in London on 7 July last year had visited Pakistan shortly beforehand, and a British national, Rashid Rauf, is still held in Pakistan over the alleged airliner plot.

High on Mr Blair's agenda for talks with President Musharraf today will be the need to stop the flow of men and weapons across the leaky border with Afghanistan, where the resurgent Taliban are attacking British forces. There have been 36 British casualties this year, many in the lawless Helmand province, where British forces were deployed to protect reconstruction schemes but have become bogged down in a vicious war with the Taliban.

Senior British officials admitted the accuracy of the assessment by Tom Koenigs, the German diplomat heading the UN mission in Afghanistan, that Nato forces could not win without the backing of Afghan troops. "We have tactically defeated the Taliban, as one Nato general said, but we recognise that there are difficulties. It has to be a combination of military action and reconstruction," said one official with Mr Blair's party.

British commanders have complained of shortages of helicopters and armoured vehicles to protect against roadside bombs and suicide bombers. Mr Blair, determined that Afghanistan does not become a second Iraq, is urgently seeking reinforcements, and Britain will be calling for more support at a Nato conference in Riga. Although 37 nations are contributing to the Afghan force, many have rules of engagement which prevent their deployment in southern Afghanistan and Nato is still awaiting troops for a rapid reaction force there.

In his talks with President Musharraf, Mr Blair is almost certain to raise the question of the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'ida leader believed to be hiding on the border, but officials made plain he would not be criticising the Pakistani leader in public. When they last met, at Chequers on 28 September, Mr Blair had to apologise privately for a leaked defence report - later dismissed as "research notes" - which said there was still considerable support for the Taliban in the ISI.

"Pakistan is not a banana republic," President Musharraf reportedly told the German magazine Focus last week. "We have an extremely loyal and disciplined army. The secret service is made up mainly of military men."

Mr Blair has little alternative but to accept the assurances of his key ally in the region.

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