Gordon Brown Outlines Smooth Troop Withdrawal to Focus on Afghanistan

By this time next year, the number of British troops in Iraq will be cut from 4,100 to just a few hundred. That was the clear message from defence sources today after Gordon Brown briefed MPs, his words understandably carefully chosen after his over-optimistic remarks last summer about the number falling to 2,500 by this spring.

Brown told parliament that "just as last year we moved from combat to 'overwatch', we would expect a fundamental change of mission in the first months of 2009 as we make the transition to a long-term bilateral partnership with Iraq, similar to the normal relationships our military forces have with other important countries in the region".

The key phrase is "fundamental change of misson". Early next year, British troops will start dismantling what defence officials call the "architecture" of their military presence in southern Iraq, built up since the invasion in March 2003.

By next year, Britain's relationship with Iraq will have been transformed from that of an occupying power to one of a conventional bilateral relationship with a friendly country.

This would include the presence of a number of British troops continuing to train and mentor the Iraqi army. It would also include civilian teams of investment and aid advisers ? Britain, as Brown made clear, wants to keep close to Basra and its port, potentially one of the richest areas of the Middle East.

That is the planning assumption in the Ministry of defense and elsewhere in Whitehall. It is a timetable and an ambition that ties in with the hopes of the Iraqi and US governments - particularly if Barack Obama wins the American presidency in November.

It is a scenario demanded by the pressure on Britain's forces. Military advisers have told ministers they cannot continue operations at the present level. As Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defence staff, said last week: "Sustaining two theaters at the level we are at the moment is a stretch on us."

The reduction in Iraq would allow British military planners and commanders to concentrate on Afghanistan, something they say London and Washington should have done from the day after the September 11 attacks in 2001, rather than getting sidetracked into invading Iraq.