British pulling more troops from Iraq

October 2, 2007

Baghdad, Iraq - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Tuesday that British troops in Basra, Iraq will be cut by 1,000 by the end of the year.

Britain commands coalition forces in the southern part of Iraq and has about 5,500 troops in the country.

The United States has the highest troop deployment of any country at around 168,000, with another 100,000 private security forces employed by companies such as Blackwater.

The comments came as Brown, on his first visit to the country since replacing Tony Blair, said the southern Basra region where British troops are deployed would be in full Iraqi control in two months, the UK Press Association said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki told reporters after the meeting in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone that his troops were ready to assume command in the country's south.

"We are prepared to take over security of Basra within two months and we will."

"Basra will be one of the provinces where Iraqi forces will completely take over security," Al-Maliki said.

Al-Maliki said that the Iraqis now had 13,000 troops and 15,000 police in southern Iraq, most of them trained by the British.