UK troops face 'generation of conflict'
Updated on 29 August 2007
The head of the British Army has warned of a "generation of conflict" ahead for troops if they fail in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It comes as 25 people were killed in fierce clashes between police and gunmen in the Iraqi city of Kerbala which erupted during a major religious event attended by hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites.
In a private address made in June - that has just been released under the Freedom of Information Act - General Sir Richard Dannatt ordered his senior staff to prepare for such an eventuality.
Sir Richard said success was vital in Iraq and Afghanistan: "If we fail in either campaign, then I submit that in the face of that strident Islamist shadow, then tomorrow will be a very uncertain place."
This revelation comes as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown rejected a call to pull British troops out of Iraq.
In an open letter to Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell, he argued it was wrong to say the continued presence of British troops would achieve little, or to say that they were severely restricted in what they can do.
In the letter Mr Brown said: "UK forces in Basra continue to have the capability to strike against the militias and provide overall security."
Mr Campbell had called for a timetable to pull out, saying casualty levels were now unacceptable, but Mr Brown said this would "undermine our international obligations, as well as hindering ... our armed forces and increasing the risks they face".
"They will continue to work with the Iraqi authorities and security forces to get them to the point where they can assume full responsibility for security," Mr Brown wrote.
There are around 5,000 British soldiers in Iraq, stationed mostly in the south, in and around the second city of Basra.
Some 2,200 troops have pulled out in the past year, and generals are gearing up to pull out of the last city base in Basra in the coming months - partly because some feel their presence there is making the security situation worse.
At least 41 soldiers have been killed in southern Iraq this year - the highest number of British casualties since the first year of the war in 2003.
Meanwhile, Iraq deputy prime minister Barham Salih has said an early pullout of US soldiers from Iraq will trigger a full-scale civil war and spark a wider conflict in the region.
Mr Salih said that was the message he had given to a stream of US officials visiting Baghdad in the lead-up to pivotal testimony that President George W Bush's top officials in Iraq will present to the US Congress in around two weeks.
Mr Bush, who is facing waning US public support for the war in Iraq, has sought to reassure Iraqi leaders that they would not pull out of Baghdad and the surrounding areas prematurely.
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