The real reason for Britain’s Iraq withdrawal

We're going to hear those fateful words 'Mission accomplished' about Iraq again, unless I am very much mistaken. The British recognise that they have to get their forces out of the country soon after next January 1 because the UN could consider the presence of the American-British force illegal.

The Americans and British have been told that the UN Security Council Resolution allowing the international force powers of occupation in Iraq will not be renewed when it runs out on December 31. Being deemed illegal by any international authority, let alone the UN, has never bothered the Bush-Cheney regime. But for the British it is an entirely different matter.

Britain is signed up to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Human Rights and both international and EU law now feature strongly in British military

justice. Any British soldier deemed to be in breach of international or EU human rights law in Iraq after the expiry of the UN resolution could be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague for war crimes.

This is why the Brown government has started 'spinning' through political journalists the message that we have achieved 'stability' - even 'success' - in Basra and we must go by Christmas.

A few weeks ago when the Maliki government decided to take on the Shia militias of Moqtada al-Sadr and others, the British performance in Basra got far from favourable notices from the Americans or the Maliki team.

Miraculously, after some robust action by 1,000 American reinforcements and 30,000 Iraqi troops, and the British getting stuck into the 'asymmetric fight' - ie. taking out a few of the hothead leaders with targeted killings - all is sweetness and light in the old bazaars by the banks of the Shatt al Arab. To make the point, Britain's Defence Secretary Des Browne flew into Basra recently to be