'Retake Basra or abandon it', says former military commander

Colonel Bob Stewart, who led UK forces in Bosnia, claimed casualties are mounting in southern Iraq because our troops are unable to "dominate the ground".

And the local soldiers earmarked to replace the British contingent are "not good enough", he said.

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"Either we retake control of that ground so that people can't, for example, rocket the Basra base or put an improvised explosive device at very short notice on to a route that one of our strike forces is going down, or we abandon it," he declared.

"The choice is either retake it and dominate the ground, or accept that we can't. Perhaps we have been a bit too hasty in handing Basra back to the Iraqi army."

In the interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Colonel Stewart said UK forces in Iraq are in an " invidious position".

"If we redominate the ground, we are then in a position to stop the attacks happening, but then we delay our departure," he added.

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"If we don't redominate the ground, we have to accept casualties. That's pretty Catch-22 to me."

Earlier this week, American commentators said Britain has been 'defeated' in Basra and that the city was becoming like the 'Wild West'.

One intelligence source told the Washington Post that UK commanders had allowed Shia militias to take control of the city's streets.

"The British have basically been defeated in the South," he said. "The 500 British troops at Basra palace are surrounded like cowboys and Indians."

Ken Pollack, a foreign affairs expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, predicted that U.S. and Iraqi forces will have to go south to fill the vacuum if the British leave.

Mr Pollack was dismissive of the British contribution over the last year to 18 months.

"I am assuming the British will no longer be there," he said, referring to the coming months.

But Rear Admiral Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, dismissed the claims. He told the Today programme yesterday: "That is a totally inconsistent characterisation with how we view our coalition partners, the Brits.

"They are professional, they are competent, they are very capable." Basra is due to be returned to local control by the end of the year. Three surrounding provinces have already been handed back to the Iraqis.

British troops have now withdrawn to Basra airport and to one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in the city.

Four soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the past week, taking this year's death toll to 53. Last year 29 died. Total fatalities since the start of the 2003 invasion stand at 168.

The two latest casualties were Lance Sergeant Chris Casey and Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath of the 1st Battalion, The Irish Guards.

They died on Thursday when a roadside bomb tore apart their lightly-armoured Land Rover as they drove through the Rumaylah oilfield near Basra. They were guarding a supply column from Kuwait.

Lance Sergeant Casey, 27 and a drummer in the Irish Guards band, leaves a widow, Tanya, and two young children, Kian and Ashlyn. Senior officers praised his "passion and enthusiasm" in his role training Iraqi army soldiers.

Lance Corporal Redpath, 22, was single and came from Romford, East London.

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The intelligence expert - described as a "perfect role model" - had volunteered for the convoy protection duty.

In Afghanistan, a Royal Anglian soldier was killed in Helmand province yesterday when his patrol came under fire from insurgents.

Back in Britain, an Army recruit seriously injured in an RAF helicopter crash which killed two airmen has died of his injuries, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

The unnamed recruit was one of nine personnel injured when the aircraft crashed near Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire on Wednesday.