SECURITY on the ground in Iraq will suffer in the short term if British troops quit, defence experts have warned.
While the Iraqi government put on a brave face when told there would be 1,000 fewer British soldiers in the country by the year's end, the predictions of both defence analysts and ordinary Iraqis were more ominous.
"It is Hell on Earth down there," said Dr Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the University of London. Describing troop withdrawal plans as "a cut-and-run from Basra," he added: "You have got a competing struggle for power between three militias and criminal gangs.
"There is no law and order and a great deal of criminality and violence. You have different criminal gangs struggling to control the oil smuggling.
"If you are a militia boss, the overall feeling is probably one of optimism. For the local people on the street, it must be one of high anxiety, instability and overwhelming fear."
Christopher Pang, head of military of the Middle East at the RUSI institute, said the partial draw-down of troops was an acknowledgment of domestic concerns over the war while appeasing US allies. He added: "If you pull out all British forces at this point, it will create a power vacuum and galvanise Shia militia to declare victory."
Steven Haines, professor of military strategy and law at the Royal Holloway University, said the troop draw-down was more to do with pressures in Afghanistan. Prof Haines, who served for more than 30 years in the armed forces and worked for eight years at the Ministry of Defence formulating policy, said: "Reducing our force is more associated with overstretch than tactical situations. In an ideal world, if we had unlimited extra troops, we would have more people in."
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, was confident Iraqis would take over control of all security in the southern province within two months. But Karim al-Miahi, the head of the Basra security committee and a member of the provincial council, warned that withdrawing British forces had a negative impact in Basra.
He said: "Iraqi forces still are not able to control the situation, which has deteriorated over the past three weeks. There has been an increase in assassinations of police and religious leaders."
He added that only the area around the British base had become more stable as shelling there had stopped now that the targets had moved.
The draw-down of British troops appears to have the blessing of US commanders in Iraq.
General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces who met Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, in Baghdad yesterday, said the planned troop reduction was "quite do-able". He added: "There are innumerable challenges in the security situation in Basra, but there are Iraqi solutions emerging to some of these."
