Britain is "running away” from Iraq, partly due to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's desire to distance himself from Tony Blair, experts saidTLiesday.

Brown said Monday that British troop numbers wotdd be cut by more than half to 2,500 by early next year as Iraqis assume control of Basra province in the south, while one official suggested all troops could be out by the end of 2008.

Britain had 5,500 troops based in and around the port city of Basra at the start of September and 7,000 soldiers in Afghanistan — a number that willshortly rise to 7,700.

The head of the army, General Richard Dannatt, has warned that British troops in the Nato force are overstretched and need urgent reinforcement to be effective

against theTaliban.

The analysts said Brown, who has forged a reputation for caution, was taking an enormous gamble because of uncertainty about the future securitysituation in Basra.

Toby Dodge, from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), and retired army major Charles Heyman, editor of Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, said the stategy was In part due to political expediency.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq is still divisive in Britain, not least in Brown's own governing Labour Party. Blair's decision to back US PresidentGeorgeW. Bush hastened his departure from office earlier this year.

As finance minister. Brown both voted for and bankrolled the war but "Prime Minister Brown needs to prove to the British people that he is different to Blair", Dodge told

AFP

He said that it was ” far too early" to reduce troop levels and the withdrawal was likely to be seen by the militia in the south as a victory and could fuel violence.

"In declaring victory and pulling out, Brown is not telling the truth," said Dodge, an Iraq and Middle East specialist at the London-based global security think-tank.

"I think in pulling troops out Brown has clearly put his own electoral chance ahead of the relationship with the United States, which makes him very different from Blair...

"The British government is running away from Iraq."

' Retired colonel Bob Stewart, a commander of British forces in Bosnia, said insurgents would give troops a "damn good kicking" as they withdrew.