Brown to make Iraq statement

|PIC1|Prime Minister Gordon Brown will make a statement to parliament on Iraq on Tuesday amid signs the government is struggling to meet its schedule for withdrawing troops from the unpopular war.

Brown announced last October that Britain would cut the number of soldiers based on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra to 2,500 from spring this year, and a senior government official said then that all could be home before 2009.

A rotation of British troops based in Iraq is due in the coming weeks, according to the Ministry of Defence, and that would typically be a time when overall numbers could be reduced by flying in fewer soldiers than those coming back.

However spokesmen at the Ministry of Defence and other government officials have steered away from any marked reduction in British troops now given the fighting in Basra, which is a hub for Iraqi oil exports.

An official in Brown's office confirmed the prime minister would make an Iraq statement on Tuesday afternoon after a scheduled monthly news conference.

There are 4,100 British soldiers at the airport base and slashing the force to 2,500 when the Iraqi army has struggled to defeat Shi'ite militias in Basra, despite heavy air support from U.S. forces, would look bad, some officials have said.

But parliament rises for a spring break on Thursday so Brown is running out of time to update lawmakers on Iraq in light of the schedule unveiled last October.

Militants loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi'ite cleric opposed to the U.S. and British presence in Iraq, rose up in cities across the south last week in the wake of a crackdown by Iraqi government troops in Basra.

British troops have so far not got involved on the ground in Basra.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have also been battling followers of the cleric in the capital Baghdad and the fortified Green Zone there, which houses Iraq's government and the U.S. embassy, has come under repeated rocket and mortar attack.

Brown, who took over from Tony Blair in June last year, had been widely expected to speed up the withdrawal of troops after voter anger at the war hastened Blair's departure from office.

Brown will discuss Iraq with U.S. President George W. Bush on April 17, little more than a week after Bush and Congress are due to receive a report on progress and troop levels.