Bush's new Iraq strategy 'makes sense': British PM Blair
Posted: 12 January 2007 0305 hrs

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LONDON : British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that US President George W. Bush's increase of troops in Iraq "makes sense", in a television interview on Thursday.

"Given the conditions in Baghdad at the moment, I think it makes sense for them to increase the number of their forces, provided it's to back up an increasing Iraqi capability," Blair said.

Bush is sending 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq, while Britain's policy is to pull back troops and hand areas including the second city of Basra over to Iraqi control.

But Blair emphasised that Britain's situation in Basra, southern Iraq, was different to the one faced by the US and said it would be a "misunderstanding" to say that the two countries' policies were diverging.

"The truth is the conditions in Baghdad are different from those in Basra.

"The reason why the Americans are having to surge forces in Baghdad is because the security condition there is completely different," Blair told Westcountry Television during a visit to southwest England.

Blair said that in Basra, "we don't have the same type of sectarian fighting, we don't have Al-Qaeda operating in the same way" as in Baghdad.

Asked about a report in The Daily Telegraph newspaper that Britain would pull out around 2,700 troops from southern Iraq by the end of May, Blair would only say it was right that Britain moved to a "support role" once the Iraqi authorities could handle their own security. - AFP/de