UK will quit Iraq 'gradually'

2006-10-22 14:20

London - British troops pulling out of Iraq will be a "process and not an event" and would only take place "when the job is done", the defence secretary insisted on Sunday as violence continued in the country.

Des Browne's comments come after junior foreign minister Kim Howells said Iraqi soldiers and police would be ready to take over security from coalition troops within a year.

In southern Iraq, where British troops are based, a regiment is on standby to re-enter the city of Amara. Security control was handed over to local forces in August but they have been severely tested by Shiite militia there.

Browne said the clashes proved that Iraqi forces were able to cope in areas where coalition troops have withdrawn.

"British forces (will move) out when the job is done. This is a process and not an event," Browne told Sky News television from Afghanistan.

"We have been in the process of moving towards transition to the Iraqi government for some months now. We're quite far down the process of transferring responsibility to the Iraqis."

Meanwhile William Hague, the foreign affairs spokesperson for the main opposition Conservatives - who backed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq - called for the government to reassess its strategy there to match a process underway in the United States.

"We should be able to fully debate it in the House of Commons and know that there is British influence in the decision, not just solely an American decision," he told BBC television.

But he said few observers wanted either an immediate pull-out of British troops or a policy of keeping them in Iraq for many more years.

Jeremy Greenstock, formerly a British ambassador to the United Nations and a special representative in Iraq, said there would a price for switching strategy in Iraq.

"There are only bad options for the coalition from now on," he told Sky News television.

He said that could be talking to Iran and Syria about Iraq, putting in extra resources or witnessing the failure of Iraqi forces as coalition troops pull out.

Greenstock said rebuilding Iraq into a stable, secure country was "going to take five years or more".

Howells told BBC radio late Saturday: "I would have thought that certainly in a year or so there will be adequately trained Iraqi soldiers and security forces - police men and women and so on -- in order to do the job," Howells said.

"I would be very surprised if there was not that kind of capacity taking on a lot of the work done by the coalition forces."

Britain has about 7 000 troops stationed in southern Iraq around the second city of Basra.

Iraqis prepared on Sunday to mark a grim Eid holiday after the bloodiest Ramadan month in more than three years forced the United States to weigh a change in tactics.

- AFP