British expected to cut troops in Iraq

LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair today is expected to announce Britain's first major troop pullout from Iraq, with 1,500 troops likely to return home within months, British news agencies reported Tuesday.

A total of 3,000 troops — more than 40 percent of Britain's contingent in Iraq — could be pulled out by the end of the year, if the handover of security to Iraqi government forces in the southern part of the country continues to go smoothly, the reports said.

The announcement would come as President Bush adds 21,500 troops in Iraq, while other coalition partners pull out. The Italians and Slovaks have left, and the Danes and the South Koreans want to start withdrawing.

Blair and Bush talked Tuesday morning, and Bush views Britain's troop cutbacks as "a sign of success" in Iraq, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Britain long has been the United States' most important coalition member in Iraq. But Blair knows the British public and politicians from his Labor Party want the troops out as quickly as possible, and don't want to see Britain stick with the United States in Iraq for the long haul.

Militarily, a British withdrawal isn't likely to have much effect on the stepped-up U.S. operation in Baghdad or the war with the Sunnis in Anbar province, west of the Iraqi capital.

Blair's expected announcement to Parliament, which the prime minister's office would not confirm, follows the British government's pledge to consider drawing down troops this year as the Iraqi military and police shoulder more responsibility for quelling sectarian violence.

Reports also said Blair would tell the House of Commons that his new game plan could change if the situation worsens on the ground on Iraq.

Blair earlier this week announced that a program to place Iraqi troops to take "main frontline control" of security in the southern city of Basra had been successful, clearing the way for British troops to assume a largely supportive role.

"It is absolutely true, as we have said for months, that as the Iraqis are more capable down in Basra of taking control of their own security, we will scale down," with the proviso that sufficient troops are "in reserve" to help in the event a "particular problem" arises, Blair told the BBC's "Sunday AM" over the weekend.

"The operation that we have been conducting in Basra is now complete, and that operation has specifically been to put the Iraqi forces in the main frontline control of security within the city," he said.

Britain put Iraqis in command of the main Iraqi army unit in Basra on Tuesday.

"The transfer is a significant step toward Iraqi forces taking responsibility for security in the city," the British military said in a statement.

Critics have questioned just how successful Iraqi forces have been when taking charge. The Iraqis also have been assigned the lead in at least two other provinces of southern Iraq.

Blair said British forces in the south face a somewhat easier task than that of the Americans — who are preparing to deploy additional troops in Baghdad and Anbar province — because the predominately Shiite Basra area does not have a Sunni insurgency or al-Qaida suicide attacks.

"While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis," the National Security Council's Johndroe said in Washington.

Johndroe said that "the United States shares the same goal of turning responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces and reducing the number of American troops in Iraq. ... President Bush sees this as a sign of success and what is possible for us once we help the Iraqis deal with the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

"We want to bring our troops home as well," Johndroe said. "It's the model we want to emulate, to turn over more responsibilities to Iraqis and bring our troops home. That's the goal and always has been."

Blair, who has said he will step down as prime minister by September after a decade in power, has seen his foreign-policy record overshadowed by his role as Bush's leading ally in the unpopular war.

Treasury chief Gordon Brown, who is likely to succeed Blair, has said he hopes several thousand British soldiers would be withdrawn by December 2007.

In November, Defense Secretary Des Browne said he believed the number of British troops based in Iraq would be "significantly lower by a matter of thousands" by the end of 2007.

At a news conference in Brussels on Jan. 15, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was not bothered that Britain was "planning a drawdown at some point this year in their forces in the south."

He said Basra's security situation was much different than Baghdad's.

The plan could mean that Prince Harry, third in line to the throne, won't be deployed to Iraq. The prospect of Prince Charles' son, an army officer, going to war has been the subject of many stories in the British press.

Reuters contributed to this report.