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Beckett welcomes US troop plans Beckett welcomes US troop plans
(10 minutes later)
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has welcomed US plans to send more than 20,000 troops to Iraq, but said the UK has no plans to do the same.Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has welcomed US plans to send more than 20,000 troops to Iraq, but said the UK has no plans to do the same.
US President George Bush said the extra troops would help end the violence and hasten the day US troops head home. She said UK troops were successfully quelling violence in British-controlled Basra, and there was no intention "at the present time" to send more.
Mrs Beckett said UK forces were already engaged in a similar operation. But she said reports that 3,000 troops would leave by May were "speculation".
"We are dealing with the security situation in Basra, it's not our intention at the present time to send more troops," she said. Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell has said the extra US troops in Baghdad might worsen the situation in the south.
On Wednesday Mr Bush warned that his country's commitment to Iraq was "not open-ended", and that he expected the government in Baghdad to fulfil its own promises. On Wednesday, US President George Bush announced extra US troops to fight alongside Iraqi unit to end violence in Baghdad, and Anbar province - where he said al-Qaeda terrorists were planning to take control.
Change of strategy 'A difficult situation'
He said that sectarian violence had overwhelmed political gains made by Iraq since the 2003 invasion and a change of strategy was needed. But he said US commitment to Iraq was "not open-ended", and that he expected the government in Baghdad to fulfil its own promises.
The vast majority of the new US troops will be sent to Baghdad to fight alongside Iraqi units to secure neighbourhoods from "terrorists and insurgents". Asked for her reaction, Mrs Beckett said it showed both President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki were "determined to try to come to grips with what is unquestionably a difficult situation in, particularly in Baghdad.
The announcement that President Bush has made and the agreement and backup from the Iraqi government and Prime Minister Maliki shows that both are determined to try to come to grips with what is unquestionably a difficult situation in, particularly in Baghdad. Margaret Beckett We are dealing with the security situation in Basra, it's not our intention at the present time to send more troops Margaret Beckett
Some 4,000 troops would go to Anbar province, he said, where al-Qaeda was planning to seize control.
Asked for her reaction, Mrs Beckett said: "The announcement that President Bush has made and the agreement and backup from the Iraqi government and Prime Minister Maliki shows that both are determined to try to come to grips with what is unquestionably a difficult situation in, particularly in Baghdad.
"We welcome that and we hope that the joint effort to resolve this very difficult security situation which is undermining efforts to put other things right in Iraq will indeed succeed.""We welcome that and we hope that the joint effort to resolve this very difficult security situation which is undermining efforts to put other things right in Iraq will indeed succeed."
But she said UK forces were already engaged in a similar operation in the southern city of Basra.
"We are dealing with the security situation in Basra, it's not our intention at the present time to send more troops," she said.
Hague sceptical
She said she was "not aware" of any suggestions British troops might be redeployed to help secure Baghdad.
And she said a Daily Telegraph report that there were plans to send nearly 3,000 British troops home by the end of May was "speculation".
Mrs Beckett welcomed the announcement
"We are under way with the process of handover as the security situation improves. We will make our judgements and our decisions depending on the progress of those events...The Telegraph may speculate about timing and so on, but it does depend on how things go in Basra."
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said he was not convinced about the US plan, saying previous attempts to secure Baghdad that way had failed.
He told the BBC the long-term presence of US troops in Iraq fuelled the insurgency, and he would have preferred more emphasis on training up and equipping Iraqi forces to take on more security.
"I hope, like Margaret Beckett, that this is successful. But I'm very sceptical about it and I would have liked to have seen from President Bush a package more closely modelled on the Baker/Hamilton report," he said.
In the US senior Democrats, whose party recently took control of both houses of Congress, have criticised the plan.In the US senior Democrats, whose party recently took control of both houses of Congress, have criticised the plan.