UK not ready to withdraw from Basra until 2008
Iraq-UK, Politics, 12/30/2006

A British soldier was killed by roadside bomb while on patrol near the city of Basra in southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defense in London announced yesterday.

The soldier, who has yet to be named, was said to have been taking part in a routine patrol in a Warrior Armored Fighting Vehicle, when it was targeted.

He was reported to have been seriously injured before being airlifted to a field hospital at Shaibah Logistics Base, where he died later. There were no other casualties reported in the incident.

His death takes the number of UK service personnel who have died since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 to 127. Of those, 96 died in action, while the rest were in accidents or of natural causes and illnesses or remain unexplained.

More than half of the British deaths have been in the period since sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis in June 2004 with the toll rising to 27 this year compared with 13 in 2005.

News of the latest fatality came as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams warned in an interview that the political mistakes of going to war had "put our own troops increasingly at risk in ways that I find deeply disturbing." It also comes after the head of British forces in southern Iraq made an unprecedented appeal on Wednesday for support for the 7,200 troops deployed under his command.

The warning by Major General Richard Shirreff that the military covenant between the nation and its soldiers was "seriously out of kilter" coincides with the British government coming under growing pressure to set a timetable to withdraw the troops from Iraq after admissions that the war had become a disaster.

British troops will not be ready to hand over power to Iraqi forces for at least another year, according to an official internal government report.

The report seen by the Daily Mail, quoted the Foreign Office's political director John Sawers saying the government's timetable to transfer power in the southern Basra province had slipped beyond the end of 2007/beginning of 2008.

The UK has already transferred security to local Iraqi forces in two of the four provinces under its control and is expected to handover authority in a third leaving only Basra.

But the report by Sawyer, who is due to become Britain's next UN ambassador next year, was said to have warned that "the deterioration of the security situation, including the struggle between rival groups, has led to an escalation of violence." "As a result, we have changed the indicator rating from Amber - On course (May 2006) to Red - Slippage," it said, using the traffic light system to assess whether a target had been met, was on course or would fall behind.

Last month, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett announced that Britain was seeking to disengage its troops from Basra by next May, when Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to step down from power.

Previous Stories:
  Iraqi vice-president stands by charge Bush brainwashed Blair   (12/23/2006)
  UK knew Iraq was not threat before invading it   (12/16/2006)
  David Cameron : Iraq deteriorating security situation casts dark shadow   (12/2/2006)

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