Reply #8: Britain Ends Iraq Mission, Withdraws Military Forces

[AndiMer]

Source: HP

BAGHDAD -- The last of Britain's military forces in Iraq pulled up anchor Sunday, ending more than eight years of fighting militants and training security forces since invading in 2003.

Eighty-one Royal Navy sailors turned over the task of patrolling waters off the southern port city of Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf to Iraq's fledgling navy. It was the last hands-on mission that British troops had in Iraq since combat forces pulled out of the southern city of Basra in July 2009.

Brig. Gen. Max Marriner, commander of British forces in Iraq, cited dramatic security gains across the country, and particularly in the south, that he said British troops helped make happen.

"Security has fundamentally improved and as a consequence, the social and economic development of the south has dramatically changed for the better, as too have people's lives," Marriner said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/britain-ends-iraq-mission_n_865212.html

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You listening, Washington?