By IRNA,
London : Britain’s armed forced will be left with only 512 troops in reserve following the announcement by Defence Secretary Des Browne to send 600 soldiers to Kosovo, it was reported Thursday.
The Glasgow Herald, the remaining soldiers are from Black Watch, 3rd battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, that will be the “UK’s last designated rapid-response unit if trouble brews elsewhere and immediate reinforcements are needed for Afghanistan or Iraq.” Britain has a total of 36 infantry battalions, but the daily said that 24 were already tied up in either “front-line operations, recovering from six-month tours, or preparing to go on them.” The other 12 were committed to UN duty in Cyprus, garrisoning the Falklands and Northern Ireland, catching up on vital training, or performing ceremonial duties in London and elsewhere.
“Even then, a number of the units supposedly out of the line of hostile fire have also been plundered regularly for “bolt-on” companies or platoons to plug gaps in other battalions,” the Herald said.
Responding to the announcement on the Kosovo deployment, the Liberal Democrats warned that the armed forces were being pushed to its limits, being “overstretched by operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Preserving stability in Kosovo is, of course, vital, but it is hard to see how further deployments of our already hard-pressed troops can be maintained,” the Lib Dem’s defence spokesman Nick Harvey said.
The Conservatives’ shadow defence secretary Liam Fox also warned about “undermining our air bridge to Iraq and Afghanistan,” saying there were questions about how the UK will find the strategic airlift capability to make the Kosovo deployment.