By DPA
London : The withdrawal of British forces from the centre of Basra and handover of security responsibility to the Iraqis was delayed by five months due to US objections, a senior British commander said in an interview published Monday.
Brigadier James Bashall, the commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, told The Daily Telegraph that the soldiers had planned to leave Basra Palace, their former headquarters, in April.
“But politics prevented that,” said the brigadier. He said “American pressure” caused the British troops to stay on in the centre of Basra, where they came under almost daily attack.
“In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” he said. “The Americans asked us to stay for longer.”
The remaining British forces were pulled out of the palace a week ago to join the rest of the 5,000-strong contingent at a new base near Basra airfield.
They also handed over security responsibility for Basra city to Iraqi forces.