Britain to cut troop level in Iraq

By Alexandra Zavis

Oct. 3, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD —

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans Tuesday to pull 1,000 troops from Iraq by Christmas, saying Iraqi authorities were ready to take responsibility for security in Basra, the last province under British control, within two months.

Brown’s announcement came at a time of deepening disenchantment in Britain with the war. His nation has about 5,500 remaining troops here compared with a peak of about 46,000 after the March 2003 invasion. The departing troops would include 500 already scheduled to go home after withdrawing last month from the last British base in Basra’s city center to an air base on its outskirts. About 270 of them have already left.

Though the prospect of further withdrawals is likely to bolster Brown’s standing at home, there is concern here that it could leave key U.S. supply routes from Kuwait vulnerable and could embolden tribal, political and militia factions engaged in sometimes murderous rivalry in southern Iraq.

Brown said he believed the 13,000 Iraqi soldiers and 15,000 police officers in Basra, a hub for Iraq’s oil exports, were now capable of handling security functions. Britain has already handed over security responsibilities in three other southern provinces to the Iraqi government.

“I believe that as we move to over-watch, as the Iraqis with [nearly] 30,000 of their own security forces take responsibility, we can move down to four and a half thousand,” Brown told reporters during his surprise visit to Iraq, his first as prime minister. “That releases a thousand of our troops, and hopefully they will be home by Christmas.”

But he added, “The final decisions will be taken based on what happens on the ground.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Tuesday that his forces were ready to take charge.

“Basra will be among the provinces falling under the jurisdiction of Iraqi security forces,” he told reporters after meeting with Brown inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

Brown also consulted with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and leading Iraqi politicians before continuing to Basra to meet with British, Australian and U.S. troops.

Brown, who has been under pressure to end Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war since he succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister in June, made his announcement during a week of political turmoil at home.

London is abuzz with speculation that Brown may call a snap general election next month to capitalize on the Labor Party’s sudden surge in popularity. He declined to comment on his intentions Tuesday.

The announcement of further troop withdrawals came in the middle of the opposition Conservative Party’s annual conference in Britain, where Tory leaders immediately criticized the prime minister for not holding off on troop withdrawal discussions until Parliament reconvenes next week.

“This is a statement that should properly have been made to Parliament,” Conservative former Prime Minister John Major told the BBC, adding that Brown was “marching to the drumbeat of an election.”

Conservative leader David Cameron, who has been generally supportive of the war though critical of its conduct, said he was prepared to support the withdrawals if it was possible to “hand over progressively” to the Iraqi army.

British officials have said that any major additional drawdown is unlikely in the near future, as it would hurt the ability of the troops who remain at Basra air base to defend themselves.

British forces will continue to patrol the border with Iran, but the focus of their operations will shift from combat to providing backup and training to the Iraqi forces, said Lt. Col. Nick Goulding, a British military spokesman.

Violence levels in the overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim south are generally lower than in the ethnically and religiously mixed areas in the center and north of Iraq. But competition for political influence and control of the region’s vast oil wealth periodically flares into bloodshed.

More than 50 people were killed when fighting broke out between the region’s two largest Shiite Muslim militias during a religious pilgrimage to Karbala last month. Two southern provincial governors have been assassinated recently, as have four associates of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country’s most revered Shiite cleric.

Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, acknowledged after his meeting with Brown that “innumerable challenges” remained in the south. But, he said, “there are really Iraqi solutions that are emerging to some of these.”

He said the withdrawal of 1,000 British forces was “actually quite doable.”

Residents near the former British base at Basra Palace expressed relief when Iraqi forces took over last month. The base had been a magnet for rocket and mortar fire, which often damaged nearby homes. But others fear their once-moderate and cosmopolitan city is being abandoned to Islamic extremists and associated militias.

“There are doubts about the loyalties of some elements in the security apparatuses,” said Hakim Jawad Ali, a high school teacher. “The minor, daily things, they can control and deal with. The worry is about big confrontations between the [political] blocs.”

In other developments across Iraq, police said a suicide car bomber killed six people and injured 10 outside a police station in Ghasan, a village northwest of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province. The bomber appeared to be targeting the police station, but could not get past blast barriers and detonated his payload at a checkpoint, police said.

At least four more people were killed and 17 injured in five separate bombings in Baghdad, police said. The bodies of nine men shot execution-style were also recovered in the capital. Police found two more bodies with burn marks near the northern city of Kirkuk.

U.S.-led forces killed one suspected insurgent and captured at least 10 others during raids targeting Sunni Arab militants in central and northern Iraq, the military said.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Times staff writers Kim Murphy in London and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad and Kirkuk contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Dwindling deployment

Britain says it will withdraw 1,000 troops from Iraq before the end of the year.

British troop levels in Iraq

March/April 2003: 46,000

June 2003: 18,000

June 2004: 8,600

June 2005: 8,500

June 2006: 7,200

October 2007: 5,500