>Whoah, I just heard on the news that the Brits are sending 1/4 of their military (26,000 troops) to Iraq. That is commitment. A few things jump to mind:
Thats just the army, the total armed forces personnel in the region will be 35000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,879101,00.html

>- must be very expensive
Very - back in November there were reports that finance ministry officials had suggested that we could not afford to become involved to the degree that the US wanted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/02/nirq02.xml

>- is this a national security risk?
Possibly - another risk is that at present the army are having to provide emergency cover during a pay dispute with our fire service.

>- I thought they would have more mililtary that that.
Total military (Army-Navy-Air Force) is double that, figures are here :
http://www.mod.uk/aboutus/factfiles/numbers.htm