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U.K. plans Iraq pullout

Hasan Suroor

Government's move follows pressure from top army officers

LONDON: British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has announced that British troops could start pulling out of southern Iraq as early as next spring.

This is the first time that the British Government has indicated a time-table for military withdrawal from Iraq, and the move is believed to have been prompted by growing pressure from senior army officers who have publicly called for an early withdrawal. Ms. Beckett's surprise statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday came barely weeks after Army Chief Sir Richard Dannatt warned that the continued presence of British troops was "exacerbating'' the situation in Iraq.

Maliki firm on plan

In what observers described as by far the most explicit statement by the Government on the issue, Ms. Beckett said she was confident that British troops would be able to hand over the security of Basra to Iraqi forces "at some point next spring.''

By then, troops would have been withdrawn from most of the other provinces under British control.

Ms. Beckett said: "The process of transferring security responsibilities to Iraqi security forces is well under way. [Iraqi] Prime Minister Maliki is determined to press ahead with that and we are equally determined to help him to do so successfully and sustainably."

But she denied that the move meant that Britain was going to "abandon'' Iraq before the job was done.

She also made clear that the planned withdrawal and redeployment would depend on the circumstances.

The fate of Iraq was "hanging in the balance,'' she said adding: "As I have said to this House before, we owe it to our own forces and to the Iraqi people to hold our nerve in this critical period."

Defence sources said the plan did not mean that troops would leave Iraq altogether any time soon.

But experts acknowledged that the move represented a "re-think'' of policy pointing out that until now the Government had refused to discuss a time-table on the ground that it would help the "insurgents.''

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