British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday 500 more soldiers would be home from the unpopular war in Iraq by year's end, fuelling speculation he may soon call a national election.
On his first visit to Iraq as prime minister, he said Iraq could take responsibility for security in Basra province within two months, completing the transfer of power in all four southern provinces for which Britain was once responsible.
Britain moved 500 soldiers from a palace in the city of Basra to a vast airbase on its outskirts in September. All 5,250 left in Iraq are now at the base and the total will fall to 5,000 soon. "By the end of the year British troops can be reduced to 4,500," Brown told reporters. "That releases 1,000 of our troops and hopefully they will be home by Christmas."
Brown left Iraq for Britain on Tuesday evening. The top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said after meeting Brown that he expected British troop cuts to be finalised in talks with US counterparts in the next few days, "I'm not aware of final decisions being made ... there certainly have been ranges that have been discussed already," he told reporters in Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone", adding that a cut of 1,000 troops was "quite doable".
Britain's Iraq force is now just over a tenth of its peak in 2003, a small presence compared to the 160,000 US troops trying to stem daily suicide attacks, car bombs, mortar attacks and sectarian killings. An Iraqi al Qaeda-led group, the Islamic State in Iraq, vowed revenge in a statement on Tuesday for the death of senior leader Abu Usama al-Tunisi, killed by US forces last week.
The Iraq war is also unpopular in the United States and Washington hopes to start bringing home soldiers next year. It aims to trim the force to 130,000-140,000 troops by July 2008. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after meeting Brown that he hoped Iraq would have different, long-term ties with London.
"We hope to change the relationship between Iraq and Britain from successful security cooperation to a long-term relationship built on economic and politically cooperation," he said.
EARLY ELECTION: Speculation is mounting in Britain that Brown, who has a solid lead in the opinion polls, will call an early election to win a popular mandate after taking over from Tony Blair in June. A cut in British troop numbers in Iraq was seen by some analysts as a signal that a vote was on the cards. Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq was deeply unpopular in Britain and Brown has sought to draw a line under his rule. Brown, who does not need to call an election until 2010, declined to comment on the election talk.
"The first thing on my mind today is the security of our armed forces and what we can do to promote democracy in Iraq," he told reporters in Baghdad before flying down to meet British soldiers at the Basra airbase. Brown's visit coincides with a marked drop in civilian and US military deaths across Iraq in September.
The 884 civilians killed in September was the lowest toll since Washington began pouring an extra 30,000 troops into Iraq as part of a security crackdown aimed at al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants and Shia militias across the country.
While the daily mortar attacks on Basra palace have largely stopped since the British troops withdrew - 41 British soldiers have been killed this year, the most since 2003 - there is concern about growing political violence in the south.
"In July, 600 mortar rounds landed in the palace," said British platoon commander Guy Bomford, 26. "I was in the last vehicle to leave, it was quite a sad moment as we drove out and saw the open gate for the last time - hopefully."
Basra has enormous strategic importance as the hub for Iraq's vital oil exports that account for 90 percent of its revenue and a centre of imports and exports throughout the Gulf. The city has been the centre of a turf war between three Shi'ite groups battling for political supremacy. The governors of two other southern provinces were assassinated in August.
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