Get out of Iraq

I did not always agree with the late councillor Browning of exeter City council but would like to draw readers attention to the Motion under standing order no. 6 which he drafted for the Exeter City Council meeting on 25th February 2003. Exeter City Council considers that a pre-emptive attack on Iraq is neither necessary nor justified and that it would produce incalculable risks to international peace and stability.Now it goes on a bit but readers can look up the motion in full on the ECC web site.Now his motion was roundly defeated by a coalition of labour and conservative councillors and my point is when is a councillor going to have the guts to draft a motion demanding withdrawal of troops from Iraq.Can anybody, the Prime Minister himself if he dares, give any good reason why British troops are still out there.I will not accept that we must finish the job, whatever that may mean, nor that we must stay there so that those who have died have not died in vain, because in reality they have. If we are not careful then it will be a repeat of the great war where by the end of it nobody fully understood what they were actually fighting for.I was proud of my son when he joined up and served in the parachute regiment, where he passed as the best turned out in his platoon as well as receiving a prize for being the absolute best in his group and even prouder when he was accepted into the SAS but this ill conceived war in Iraq was not why he joined up and I am even now more proud than ever that he has taken the very brave decision to allow himself to be released from the army. The mass media have forgotten about Kendall-Smith but others haven't.In the great war there was a little ditty sung by the troops which goes "we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here" and I am sure that if somebody brought out a record today along those lines the troops would send it straight to number one. Get out now Blair, even if you have to fake some illness or other.