Beginning of the end for Brits in Iraq?

By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website

The withdrawal of some UK troops from Iraq does not mark the end of the British commitment there but it is a psychologically important moment that could well mark the beginning of the end.

This is not just about how many are leaving or staying, or about a continuing role for the British military in Iraq, which it will have. It is about perception and psychology, with the emphasis in the public and political mind on getting out.

The plan is to reduce UK troops' exposure to attack

It could well be the point of no return, the moment when the British government started to put into practice what it has long been planning and from which the flow of decisions will be all in one direction.

The troop numbers will go down by 1,600 to about 5,500 within months and then to below 5,000 perhaps later in the year.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was careful to state in the House of Commons that British forces would remain into 2008 and he did not predict how many troops are likely to be there next year.

Good and evil

Further decisions will have to be taken by his successor. And the temptation might be to withdraw even more troops even more quickly by next year. Mr Blair will not be in office to argue that Iraq is the battleground chosen by al-Qaeda on which it must be fought.

Iraqi soldiers will take the place of the British

It is hard to see the expected new prime minister, Gordon Brown, speaking as Mr Blair did on Wednesday about good and evil: "The desire for democracy is good. The attempt to destroy it through terrorism is evil.

"Unfortunately that is not the question. The question is: not should we, but can we defeat this evil; do we have a plan to succeed?"

Mr Blair himself has announced that Operation Sinbad (the name chosen by some literary-minded commander from the sailor in the One Thousand and One Nights who set off from Basra) has been successful in reducing insecurity in the city. That claim could be used by his successor to justify further reductions.

...Britain cannot conduct a rapid withdrawal at the very moment when the new US reinforcement operation has only just begun - it would not look good to appear to be deserting an ally

The British move does present the Bush administration with some problems, both political and to an extent military.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the departing US ambassador to Iraq, revealed recently that Washington opposed a British withdrawal.

Huge tasks ahead

In fact, the withdrawal is somewhat less than had been expected.

Perhaps this is a result of fears that the Iraqis are not that well trained and that Britain cannot conduct a rapid withdrawal at the very moment when the new US reinforcement operation has only just begun. It would not look good to appear to be deserting an ally.

Official explanations in both London and Washington that the British decision is the culmination of the intended policy and that it is from a very different part of Iraq will not change the fact that President Bush's domestic opponents will use this to press their own case for a pullout. A contrast is being drawn between the US sending troops in and the UK pulling them out.

While the British aim now is to hand over security control as much and as quickly as possible to the Iraqis, there will be a continuing combat duty on five levels:

• Training Iraqi troops
• Securing the border with Iran
• Securing supply routes
• Maintaining, as Mr Blair put it, "above all, the ability to conduct operations against extremist groups and be there in support of the Iraq Army when called upon"

These are by no means minimalist tasks. The border watch will involve long range patrols, the supply route monitoring is vital to protect the huge convoys from Kuwait that supply the US army and the "extremist groups" - notably the Shia Mehdi army that opposes a British presence - could be hard to deal with.

The revised British role will see most units stationed at the airport so their presence in the streets and their exposure to attack will be lessened.

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