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Brown meets top US general in Iraq

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Sept 18, IRNA
UK Brown-Iraq
Prime Minister Gordon Brown was holding talks Tuesday with the US head of coalition forces in Iraq General David Petraeus and American ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker amid reports of friction between the two countries over the UK's withdrawal plans.

The London meeting comes after Petraeus delivered an upbeat assessment of the impact of the US military "surge" in Iraq in an address to Congress last week to counter growing calls for a mass withdrawal.

Brown is not due to announce plans on the future of Britain's remaining 5,000 troops in Iraq until after MPs return to parliament after their three-month summer recess in October.

But over the weekend it was reported that British troop numbers in Iraq are expected to be further reduced, with half of them being removed to neighbouring Kuwait.

The British premier last week played down differences with the pace of the withdrawal that will leave the US isolated in Iraq, insisting that "like America, Britain will discharge our duties to the Iraqi people, to our allies and to the international community." "Decisions on the future size and strength of our forces on the ground in Iraq will continue to depend on conditions on the ground," he said.

But Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell has urged Brown to tell the US that British troops should be pulled out entirely from Iraq.

"The PM should tell General Petraeus that Britain has fulfilled its moral obligation to Iraq and that our continued presence neither meets military purposes nor political objectives," said Campbell, who opposed the 2003 joint invasion.

Differences with the US have been revealed by UK military commander in Iraq, Brigadier James Bashall, who said last week that the recent withdrawal of British troops from Basra palace had been delayed by five months due to political pressure from the US.

"In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that," Bashall said.

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