Gordon Brown has ruled out setting a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, saying they still have ‘an important job to do’.
The prime minister said in a letter to Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell: ‘It is wrong to say that the continuing presence of UK forces in Iraq will achieve little, or that they are severely restricted in what they can do.
‘UK forces in Basra continue to have the capability to strike against the militias and provide overall security.
‘They will continue to work with the Iraqi authorities and security forces to get them to the point where they can assume full responsibility for security.’
He insisted setting a timetable would undermine those efforts.
‘I will do nothing that puts at risk the ability of our armed forces, who have done and are doing a magnificent job, to accomplish their work,’ Brown added.
Senior British officers have been consistently calling on brown to face defeat in Iraq and pull troops out.
However, backing up Brown, the Ministry of Defence has just released remarks made by the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, to a Royal United Services Institute conference in June from which the media were excluded.
General Dannatt said British troops must prepare for a ‘generation of conflict’ and continue to work for ‘some form of success’ in Iraq as well as ‘significant achievement’ in Afghanistan.
‘It is success today in these two theatres, however you define success, that, as far as I’m concerned, is both the top and bottom line because, if we fail in either campaign, then I submit that, in the face of that strident Islamist shadow, then tomorrow will be a very uncertain place,’ he said.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that UK troops had ‘very clear objectives, that Iraq should be run by the Iraqis’.
‘Secondly, we have very clear criteria for moving towards that sort of Iraqi control, and that is on the basis of their own security forces having the ability to run their own affairs,’ Miliband said.
There are about 5,500 British military personnel in Iraq, down from 18,000 in May 2003 at the end of combat operations.
But US officials have warned that UK troops are too thin on the ground.
Last week senior US military advisor General Jack Keane expressed ‘frustration’ that the British were more focused on training Iraqi troops than controlling ‘deteriorating’ security in Basra.
Miliband insisted that decisions about operations in Basra would not be influenced by US opinion.
Some 1,600 British troops were withdrawn from Iraq earlier this year and the government has said another 500 could leave by December if conditions are right.
l A $3bn (£1.49bn) Kuwait Airways order for 19 planes from Aviation Lease and Finance Co (Alafco) has been aborted after failing to meet government approval.
The deal ‘is considered cancelled’, Alafco said in a statement to the Kuwait stock exchange, after it received a letter from the national flag carrier.
The $3bn order included seven European Airbus 320s and 12 Boeing Dreamliner 787 models.
The announcement saw millions of dollars wiped off Alafco assets, as its share price slumped by seven per cent. Alafco is part-owned by Islamic bank Kuwait Finance House.
• Second news story
3 US TROOPS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN
Three NATO ISAF soldiers have been killed in a suicide bombing in eastern Afghanistan, NATO said yesterday.
Six others were hurt in the blast. Nato did not say where the attack took place nor identify the victims but the majority of ISAF troops in the east are from the United States.
Earlier, the US-led coalition said three of its troops and two Afghan soldiers had been killed in eastern Kunar province on Sunday.
Nato said ISAF forces were at a bridge construction project when a suicide bomber blew himself up.
Two US soldiers were killed instantly, a third died as he was being taken for treatmen, and ten more were wounded.
In the clash in Kunar province, ten other ISAF troops were wounded on Sunday, the coalition said.