British, Aussie troops may withdraw from Samawah in Iraq:

TOKYO (AFP) Sep 13, 2005
Britain and Australia have told Japan that they are planning to withdraw their troops from the Southern Iraqi city of Samawah, where Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) troops are engaged in a postwar reconstruction mission, Jiji Press reported Tuesday.
It said government officials had told the news agency that Japan was informed of the plan one or two months ago.

No specific timetable has been given for the planned withdrawal, they added.

The British and Australian forces are guarding the non-combat troops of the GSDF in the Iraqi city, the report said.

If the British and Australian forces leave Samawah, Iraqi forces are to take over the guarding duties. It is widely believed in Japan that the Japanese troops would not be able to operate safely in Samawah in such a situation.
source


Maybe Japan needs to get some of their combat troops over their to protect the construction military personnel? Either way, its weird Britain is pulling out troops.

Maybe Japan needs to get some of their combat troops over their to protect the construction military personnel? Either way, its weird Britain is pulling out troops.

it is a tad strange for us to be leaving, but it does seem to be part of the Iraqization of the security apparatus.

And Japan cannot send Combat troops, their constitution forbids it. The only way PM Koizumi managed to get the Japanese parliament to agree to anything in Iraq was by guaranteeing that they would not take part in fighting.

There are already some areas of Iraq that have been handed over to the Iraqis and the Iraqi President has even said that up to 50,000 troops could leave Iraq by the end of the year although I doubt that it will happen.

Coalition hands control of camp Zulu over to Iraqis

Iraqi President Talabani says US could withdraw 50,000 troops by the end of 2005

I think 50K is too many to withdraw in the next 3 months, maybe like 15-25K but not 50K. We don’t want to withdraw too many at once then have to bring them back, that would just be inconvenient.