Brown flies to Middle East on the eve of a big week in Westminster

At the start of the most crucial week of his term of office, Gordon Brown is paying a flying visit to the Middle East this weekend before making a statement to the Commons on the long-term reduction of British troops from Iraq.

No matter how the Prime Minister dresses it up for his backbenchers, most of whom want a pull-out from Iraq as soon as possible, Brown will oppose any timetable for a total withdrawal.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraq Prime Minister, has demanded a timetable by the US in advance of the US Presidential elections, but Brown has discussed this with Bush and intends to turn it down. The British troops are there for the long haul with the US forces.

There are more than 4,000 troops based at Basra airport and Brown is expected to announce that he intends to cut their number by almost a half to about 2,500. That is fewer than the service chiefs have privately said is a safe limit for their own protection, but enough to cope in a crisis until more support can be flown in.

It is unlikely that the big drawdown will take place until next year and some may be withdrawn only as far as neighbouring Kuwait, although forces chiefs desperately want more men in Afghanistan to combat the resurgent Taliban who are using suicide attacks, roadside bombs and other techniques in killing learned in Iraq.

Brown's statement will be made on Monday or Tuesday in the Commons. It is going to be a week which could decide his fate, one way or the other. The MPs pack their bags for their long summer break from Westminster on Tuesday night, but on Thursday Brown faces the threat of a humiliating defeat in the by-election in once safe-as-houses Glasgow East. Alistair Darling reckons Labour will just 'edge it', giving Brown breathing space until the party conference season.

On Friday, however, he is also due to meet the unions at a Labour Party conference in Warwick, when he is expected to give them some plain talking about the need for pay restraint, despite strike action by town hall workers and thousands of others in the public sector.

He is also due to meet US Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama on the last leg of Obama's tour of European capitals. Obama will also fleetingly meet David Cameron, the Tory leader, with whom he may have to consolidate the 'special relationship' if they are both elected. It could be the two of them - and not Brown - who will have to end the occupation of Iraq.

THE MOLE: IRAQ

LAST UPDATED 4:28 PM, JULY 18, 2008