Britain is likely to begin scaling back its forces in Iraq within the next 12 months, Defense Secretary John Reid confirmed in an interview on Sunday.
"I believe it is a process that could start -- no more than that -- over the next 12 months," he told the US news channel CNN.
Reid insisted Britain did not have "long-term imperialist ambitions" in Iraq and said US-led forces, which include around 8,500 British troops, would only stay as long as needed.
Speaking after more than 110 Iraqis were killed and 300 wounded in a three day suicide bombing blitz in Iraq, Reid also insisted that British troops would not leave the country until the Iraqis had built up their security forces.
Once they had done so, Britain could "gradually run down our presence" in the country, he said.
"The insurgency itself might go on a long, long time, so what we have to envisage is a transitional handover over a period of time so that the Iraqis themselves ... can gradually take control of their own security and counter-terrorism," he told CNN in an interview.
"But we will not be going unless and until they are in a position to do that, so it will be a conditional withdrawal, not set to any immutable time scale."
Britain's defense ministry said last week that the US and Britain were considering withdrawing more than 100,000 coalition troops from Iraq next year as one of a number of options.
A leaked government memorandum, published in a British newspaper, had indicated Britain was considering cutting its troop presence from the current 8,500 to 3,000 by the middle of next year.
It also suggested Washington hoped to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 of 18 Iraqi provinces by early next year, allowing it to slash overall US-led troop levels to 66,000 from 176,000. The identities of three British soldiers killed in a roadside bomb in southeastern Iraq were revealed on Sunday, taking the death toll among British forces in the country to 92.
In a separate interview on Sky News television, Reid said he accepted the security situation in Iraq was deteriorating, but that it reflected extremist fears that a democratically elected Iraqi government could come to power.
"It is deteriorating in some ways in the sense that the frenzy of terror and the murders which you mentioned is greater, that is true.
"And the reason that is getting worse and greater, is that in terms of democratic control and the formation of their own security forces the [Iraqi] position is getting better," he said.
Reid said there were now 170,000 trained Iraqi troops in the country, more than all the international forces put together. He said an inclusive, elected government, which integrated Islam and democracy, would be a major strategic failure for extremist movements.
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