Britain Announces 10 Percent Trim in Troop Deployment

Growth of Iraqi Forces Allows Cutback by May, Official Says

LONDON, March 13 -- Britain announced Monday that it would cut the number of its troops in Iraq to just over 7,000 by May, a 10 percent reduction that it said was made possible by the growth of the new Iraqi security forces.

"We will stay as long as we are needed, and wanted, and until the job is done," Defense Secretary John Reid told the House of Commons in a speech. But in explaining the latest cutback of about 800 troops, he said the number of "trained, capable and equipped" Iraqi security personnel had risen to about 235,000, with 5,000 more people joining every month.

Britain's current troop strength of 8,000 is already a fraction of the 46,000 British soldiers deployed at the start of the war in 2003.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has been President Bush's closest ally on Iraq. But opinion polls show strong public opposition. "There is now an established majority in Britain believing it was a mistake to go to war," said Peter Kellner, chairman of the polling firm YouGov, who estimated that two of every three Britons felt that way.

"There is political pressure for an exit strategy," said Michael Moore, a member of Parliament and the opposition Liberal Democrats' spokesman on foreign affairs issues. He said Reid's address sent "mixed signals" regarding how Iraqi security forces were faring in maintaining order.

"We need clear milestones that will signal to the Iraqi people and others that there is an end to the coalition's presence in their country," Moore said.

Lt. Gen. Nick Houghton, Britain's highest-ranking army commander in Iraq, recently suggested in a newspaper interview that Britain might withdraw most of its troops in 2008.

But Reid, in his speech to legislators Monday, did not provide any timetable for a total withdrawal and stressed that "there is a long, long way to go."

British forces seized the city of Basra and other parts of southern Iraq in the early days of the war. Dominated by a Shiite Muslim population that generally opposed the rule of Saddam Hussein, the south has been comparatively quiet since the invasion, and the British military presence has steadily declined. By May 2004, 18,000 British service members remained in Iraq.

"We understand that the U.K. is making this adjustment," Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday. "Each nation involved makes these decisions."

There are about 133,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, officials said. Shortly after the invasion, U.S. strength stood at about 150,000, according to the Brookings Institution.

Reid said Britain's lead unit in Iraq, the 7th Armored Brigade, would be replaced in early May by the 20th Armored Brigade.

He stressed that "the reductions I've announced are not part of a handover of security responsibility to the Iraqis themselves. They are not caused by, nor a cause of, changes in troop levels of other coalition allies." He pointed instead to the growth of Iraqi security units at a time when U.S.-led coalition forces remain in overall control.

"We are not yet at the stage where whole provinces could be taken under the responsibility of Iraqi security forces," Reid said. "We continue to assess that. When those conditions are met, I will make another announcement to this house."

Addressing growing concern about the recent level of violence in Iraq, Reid said: "Our analysis is that civil war is neither imminent nor inevitable."