UK may increase Iraq deployment

Herald Sun
Sep. 19, 2005

Britain said overnight it would, if necessary, increase the number of troops in Iraq as fears that the country is sliding towards civil war increase.

Britain, the main ally of the United States in Iraq, has about 8500 soldiers deployed there and has frequently said its soldiers would stay until the Iraqi government asked them to leave.

"We don't need them (more troops) at the moment, if that's necessary, of course we would do that," British Defence Minister John Reid told Jonathan Dimbleby's show on ITV.

"There's no quitting and running, we're there until the job is done."

His comments followed a report in the Sunday Telegraph that escalating violence had forced the government to abandon plans for a sharp reduction in its troop numbers in Iraq next year.

Amid worries that the army is at full stretch, London's Defence Ministry denied the report and said it had never set a timetable for withdrawing its troops. It says any reduction in troop numbers depends on conditions in Iraq.

It did confirm that soldiers from the 7th Armoured Brigade, better known as the Desert Rats, would be redeployed to Iraq before the end of the year, suggesting thousands of British troops will remain in the country well into 2006.

"Our troops will be there until such times as the conditions are met, those conditions being the Iraqis themselves having such democratic control and such security forces as they can take the lead," Mr Reid said.

A government document leaked to a newspaper in July suggested London hoped to cut its forces in Iraq to 3000 by the middle of next year.