Troops set to quit Basra next spring

Most British troops could be out of Iraq within nine months.

Major General Barney White-Spunner, who returned to London this week after six months commanding Britain's 4,100-strong force in Basra, said conditions in the southern Iraqi city had been transformed since a clampdown on militias.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown last month told MPs that Britain aimed to achieve a "fundamental change of mission".

Maj-Gen White-Spunner said: "Conditions now are looking as if the fundamental change of mission will be able to take place next year. The change in Basra is really very marked.

"As Iraq gets better and better, it will allow for force reductions. From a UK point of view, we're getting pretty close to achieving what we went there to do."

The British contingent in Iraq could be reduced to a few hundred military trainers after next spring, say sources.

British forces have already pulled out of the city to Basra airport on its outskirts.

But Britain was accused by US military commanders of not pulling its weight in southern Iraq after UK forces initially stayed in their base during a drive in March by US and Iraqi troops to force out Shia militias.

Maj-Gen White-Spunner dismissed suggestions that Britain had not been fully engaged in the battle and said security had since improved almost beyond measure.

"Basrawis realised what a nightmare, literally, that was. They're not going to put themselves back through that period of violent extremism," he said.

"They have got better things to do now with their lives and I do not see Basra coming back under militia control. Those days are passed."

As an example, he said property prices had risen sharply in Basra in recent months, with foreign investors, including businessmen from Kuwait, buying waterfront houses.

There were only around 1,500 hardcore militants left in the city, out of a population of nearly three million, he added, and British soldiers could stop and eat kebabs in the streets.

However, if violence escalated, military commanders would have to rethink withdrawal plans.

"The Americans quite sensibly ... want the force reductions to be such that they can maintain the gains they've made, and obviously we will be in discussion with them, militaryto-military, as to how we take that planning forward," Maj-Gen White-Spunner added.

Many of the troops returning from Iraq are likely to be redeployed to Afghanistan.