Britain Reduces Troops in Iraq

Britain officials declared on Monday that they will reduce their forces by 10%, the process of handing over security to Iraqi forces beginning in a few weeks. Defense Secretary John Reid said the troops will be reduced by 800 in the next few months.

Iraqi and U.S. officials will meet to "assess progress and look at whether conditions have been met for some provinces" to be turned over to the Iraqi forces, Reid declared. The official reason for this retreat is due to the training of Iraqi military units to maintain law and order and tackle any insurgents.

This training has proceeded rapidly in the past few months, the 230,000 Iraqis being now well-trained and equipped. Still, in the area with the largest concentration of British forces, namely the Shia-dominated south-east of Iraq, the situation is not as pleasant.

There, the population is mainly Shi'ite and therefore the British did not have to fight a Sunni insurgency. British commanders have complained about the decaying security situation because of the deadly roadside bombs employed by the Shi'ite sectarian militiamen.

The small British Army is now present in the Middle East, the Balkans and now Afghanistan, where up to 5,700 troops will be deployed for the next three years. Some fear that operating different missions can be too difficult for the British forces. "This isn't the handover. That will come if conditions permit. But what it does illustrate is that on the way to that handover we are making progress," Reid concluded.