Iraq troops have 'important job'
Updated on 28 August 2007
Gordon Brown says UK troops will stay in Iraq until security forces there can assume full responsibility for security.
And the prime minister rejected claims that little could now be achieved by the continuing presence of UK forces in Basra.
"UK forces in Basra continue to have the capability to strike against the militias and provide overall security," Mr Brown said in a letter to Menzies Campbell.
He was responding to the Liberal Democrat leader's call for a timetable for British troop withdrawal from Iraq. Mr Campbell's letter went on to describe as "unacceptable" the level of British troops casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Brown stressed that the UK's approach to Iraq should be based on the principle "that we fulfil our obligations to the government and people of Iraq and the United Nations".
Meanwhile today's edition of The Times reports that the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has predicted a "generation of conflict" for UK forces.
In a speech in June to senior MoD staff, whose contents have been released under a Freedom of Information request, General Dannatt envisaged only "some form of success in Iraq".
And he warned that if British UK involvement fails in either Iraq or Afghanistan, "then tomorrow will be a very uncertain place".
