MPs to grill Hoon over Iraq

Geoff Hoon today faces a bruising Commons showdown over plans to send British soldiers into the American-controlled sector of Iraq.

As the Evening Standard exclusively revealed last week, British forces could take over peacekeeping in northern Iraq troublespots, allowing US forces to mount a major ground assault on the rebel stronghold of Fallujah.

A battle group of 650 Black Watch troops has been earmarked to stand in for US Marines policing Iskandariya and Latifiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Defence Ministry sources say Mr Hoon will give MPs a " holding statement" saying any decision on deployment will be left to the military.

However, the British government is unlikely to upset its coalition ally by rejecting the US request for British troops to join patrols in the notorious Sunni triangle. This is despite fears that British forces could be vulnerable to heavy losses.

The Conservatives claim the Government has struck a "tawdry" political deal to help George Bush with his bid for re-election.

In a letter to Mr Hoon, shadow defence secretary Nicholas Soames said sending the troops was a gesture of solidarity with President Bush by Tony Blair.

Lord Falconer, the Constitutional Affairs Secretary, today insisted the decision had nothing to do with the US election. "These are operational issues in relation to what is going on in Iraq," he said. "It is entirely not political."

Anti-war Labour MPs are expected to voice concerns that the move will precipitate a much wider role for UK forces who, until now, have been deployed in the "safer" area of Basra in southern Iraq.

Army chiefs have warned that accepting the US request could leave a "dangerous" gap in British manpower in Basra. It is reported General Sir Michael Walker, chief of defence staff, has expressed concerns about the redeployment.

A US assault on Fallujah is understood to be imminent.

The city is the base of the Muslim extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, responsible for the deaths of Kenneth Bigley and several US hostages.

In his letter to Mr Hoon, Mr Soames wrote: "I am fully aware of the importance and timing our American friends and allies attach to the Fallujah offensive and the urgent arrest of al-Zarqawi."

And ministers are privately worried about being ensnared militarily and politically with the Americans in the runup to the UK general election.

But Alan Milburn, Labour's election co-ordinator, denied any link, claiming people would look "pretty askance" at suggestions of a "tawdry political deal" with the US. Military chiefs on the ground would be consulted about troop movement decisions, he insisted.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: "What has bedevilled this entire issue is there has been a lack of political strategy from the outset.

"Far from being an exit strategy, it runs the risk of being an ensnaring strategy which drags Britain and British forces further into the mire."