LONDON - Britain and the U.S. are trying to build a new strategy to exit
Iraq that could see British troops leaving the country by Christmas, a newspaper reported citing a government memo written by the defense secretary.

The Mail on Sunday reported that British Defense Secretary John Reid drafted a secret paper for Prime Minister Tony Blair outlining how most of the country's 8,500 troops could be sent home from Iraq within three months, with the rest by the end of the year.

The document also said the U.S. was looking to cut back its own troop levels to 66,000, down from the 135,000 there now.

But in a statement released by Britain Defense Ministry, Reid said the document was simply one of several period updates examining possible scenarios for the war in Iraq.

"We have made it absolutely plain that we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed," Reid said in a statement. "No decisions on the future force posture of UK forces have been taken."

In a copy of the letter, portions of which were printed by the newspaper and marked "Secret -- UK Eyes Only," Reid wrote that there was a strong desire in the U.S. military to reduce the number of its troops in Iraq and hand over security duties to Iraqi forces in 14 of the country's 18 provinces by the end of the year.

I'm guessing that the memo, which I previously posted about here, was part of the development of a contingency plan for Iraq. Both the American and British militaries often have, on file, hundreds of plans for troop movement and the like based on all sorts of different situations. The memo above was probably describing troop reductions for a few of those situations. It doesn't mean that troop level reductions for the end of this year are written in stone. Some people, unforutnatley, will undoubtedly take it that way.

But putting that aside for a moment, I am still disgusted at the media's putting big ratings on a troop pull-out story above the security of those very troops, not to mention the success of the mission in Iraq. The memo in question was marked "UK Eyes Only" for a reason. The British military, I would assume, is not in the habit of communicating its plans, even contingency plans, with the enemy.

Sadly, the media has now, for better or worse, done that for them. Which, to my mind, is a wholly irresponsible thing to do.