Brown hails Iraq improvements

Gordon Brown has said there is now a better prospect of a "more peaceful outcome" in southern Iraq.

The prime minister said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that security improvements in recent months were leading people to re-evaluate the success of the military operation there.

On the weekend that the new Australian government pledged to withdraw its 500 troops from Iraq, Brown acknowledged that the 2003 invasion and its aftermath had been "divisive" both in Britain and abroad.

But he said that the drawdown of British forces and redeployment of some to an "overwatch" role had been possible because of a fall in the number of violent incidents.

"It has been a very divisive issue, but I do think that over the last few months Iraq has moved into a better position, at least in the south of Iraq, for us achieving a more peaceful outcome," Brown told Sky News.

"I think, in Iraq, that - while there have been huge difficulties in previous years and it is undoubtedly the case that this has divided public opinion right across the world, whether in Australia, Britain or America - people are now seeing Iraq in a
different position from where it was even a few months ago," he added.

"In the south of Iraq at least, where the British troops are, there is far less violence.

"We are moving to a position where, from a position of combat we can move to a position of overwatch. Our increasing role will be training the Iraqis to maintain their own security, with their own armed forces.

"I would expect in the next few months people to see some of the achievements in Iraq in a different way.

"Obviously, the test is whether we can maintain better security, we can get the Iraqis into a position where they can actually be responsible for their own policing and security, and we can see the economic development that flows from that so that people feel in Iraq that they have got a stake in the future."