LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce Britain's first major troop pullout from Iraq, with 1,500 troops likely to return home within the next few months, British news agencies reported yesterday.
A total of 3,000 troops - more than 40 percent of Britain's contingent in Iraq - could be pulled out by the end of the year, if the handover of security to Iraqi government forces in the southern part of the country continues to go smoothly, the reports said.
Britain has long been the most important coalition member in Iraq after the United States. But Blair knows that the British public and politicians from his own Labor Party want the troops out as quickly as possible and don't want to see Britain stick with the U.S. in Iraq for the long haul.
Militarily, a British withdrawal isn't likely to have much effect on the stepped-up U.S. operation in Baghdad or the war with the Sunnis in Anbar province west of the Iraqi capital. However, Iraqi forces could have a tough time maintaining security in mostly Shiite southern Iraq, including Basra.
The expected announcement to Parliament today, which the prime minister's office declined to confirm, follows the British government's pledge to consider drawing down troops this year as the Iraqi military and police shoulder more responsibility for quelling sectarian violence.
An important signal came earlier this week, when Blair announced that a program to give Iraqi troops "main front-line control" of security in the southern city of Basra had been "successful," clearing the way for British troops to assume a largely supportive role.
Critics have questioned just how successful Iraqi forces have been when taking charge. The Iraqis have also been assigned the lead in at least two other provinces of southern Iraq.
"It is absolutely true, as we have said for months, that as the Iraqis are more capable down in Basra of taking control of their own security, we will scale down," with the proviso that sufficient troops are "in reserve" to help in the event a "particular problem arises," Blair told the BBC's Sunday AM over the weekend.
"The operation that we have been conducting in Basra is now complete, and that operation has specifically been to put the Iraqi forces in the main frontline control of security within the city," he said.
