- The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq
next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the
country, The Observer has learnt.
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- The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong,
will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine
rotation of units.
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- The news came amid another day of mayhem in Iraq, which
saw a suicide bomber kill at least 23 people and injure 53 in the northern
city of Kirkuk. The victims were queueing to join Iraq's National Guard.
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- More than 200 people were killed last week in one of
the bloodiest weeks since last year's invasion, strengthening impressions
that the country is spinning out of control.
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- Yesterday grim footage apparently showing a British engineer
kidnapped from a house in Baghdad last week along with two American colleagues
surfaced in a video released in the Iraqi capital. The group holding the
three threatened to execute them unless Iraqi women prisoners are released
from jail.
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- And last night it was reported that 10 more staff working
for an American-Turkish company had been seized as hostages.
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- There are now fears that scheduled Iraqi elections in
January will have to be delayed because of the growing instability.
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- Last week Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said that
more troops could be sent to safeguard the polls if necessary, although
Whitehall sources said there was no guarantee that they would be British.
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- The forthcoming 'drawdown' of British troops in Basra
has not been made public and is likely to provoke consternation in both
Washington and Baghdad. Many in Iraq argue that more, not fewer, troops
are needed. Last week British troops in Basra fought fierce battles with
Shia militia groups.
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- The reduction will take place when the First Mechanised
Infantry Brigade is replaced by the Fourth Armoured Division, now based
in Germany, in a routine rotation over the next few weeks.
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- Troop numbers are being finalised, but, military sources
in Iraq and in Whitehall say, they are likely to be 'substantially less'
than the current total in Basra: the new combat brigade will have five
or even four battle groups, against its current strength of six battle
groups of around 800 men.
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- A military spokesman in Basra confirmed the scaling back
of the British commitment.
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- Currently there are 8,000 British troops in the 14,000-strong
'multinational division' in southern Iraq, which has responsibility for
about 4.5 million people.
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- The cuts will occur in the combat elements of the deployment
- the 5,000-strong infantry and armoured brigade that is committed to the
provinces of Basra and Maysan. Four Royal Navy ships will remain in the
Gulf.
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- However, the incoming force will leave its heavy armour,
mainly Challenger tanks, behind, but will be equipped with a unit of Warrior
armoured troop carriers.
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- Senior officers say the scaling back of the British commitment
in Iraq is a sign of their success in keeping order and helping reconstruction.
But both Basra and Maysan have seen heavy combat recently, with some units
sustaining up to 35 per cent casualties, and remains restive. The al-Mahdi
army, which was responsible for most of the fighting, remains heavily armed.
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- 'Whatever they say, fewer troops mean less capability,'
a military expert told The Observer . 'You need as many boots on the ground
as you can get for low-intensity warfare and peace-keeping operations.'
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- Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, will hold
talks with Tony Blair at Chequers tomorrow on security issues, including
elections and the strengthening of border patrols.
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- News of the troop withdrawal comes at a difficult time
for Blair, with the publication yesterday of leaked documents suggesting
that he was warned a year before the invasion that it could prompt a meltdown.
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- However Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary and a close
ally of Blair, told The Observer that the Prime Minister still believed
that Britain's actions would be justified by the restoration of democracy
'however difficult and remote a prospect that seems at the moment, when
our headlines are crowded with further attacks by the insurgents'.
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- In another embarrassment for the Prime Minister, a draft
report from the Iraqi Survey Group, set up to investigate Saddam Hussein's
weapons programme, has concluded that the former dictator's only chemical
or biological armament was a small amount of poison for use in political
killings.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1307980,00.html
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