By NNN-KUNA
London : Britain’s withdrawal of its troops from Basra was delayed by five months because of political pressure from the US for them to stay, one of British military commanders in Iraq has said.
Brigadier James Bashall, the commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper Monday that quitting the city last April would have been “the right thing to do.”
The last few months have seen British troops based at Basra Palace come under sustained attack, with more than 1,500 mortar rounds fired at the base, Britain’s last stronghold in Iraq’s second city, 11 soldiers killed and 62 wounded.
The 550 men of 4 Rifles finally quit Basra Palace last Monday, withdrawing under cover of darkness to an air base outside the city and handing over the palace site to Iraqi government forces.
Bashall said he would have preferred to quit the palace in April, following the successful completion of the six-month “Operation Sinbad” to impose security across Basra.
He said: “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. The Americans asked us to stay for longer.”
The decision to remain in Basra was a consequence of “political strategy being played out at the highest level,” said Bashall.
A British Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman said: “The decision to hand over Basra Palace was part of a conditions-based transition, developed in consultation with the Iraqi government and our coalition partners.”
“We were able to hand over the palace because of progress made and capability demonstrated, by the Iraqi Security Forces, particularly the Army.”
“We handed Basra Palace over this month only when the conditions were right and the Iraqi forces were ready to take over.”
“The government of Iraq decided in May it wanted to keep Basra Palace, and it then took time to form and train the Iraqi Palace Protection Force to the point that it could take over Basra Palace,” added the MoD spokesman.