Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/britain-announces-troop-drawdown-in-southern-iraq Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Wednesday that about 1,600 of Britain's 7,100 troops will begin to withdraw from southern Iraq in the coming months. A Pentagon correspondent and a policy expert analyze the politics behind the decision. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GARY GIBBON, ITV News Correspondent: Mr. Blair could not announce mission accomplished in the southern region around Basra, but rather that British forces in large numbers had achieved about as much as they could.TONY BLAIR, Prime Minister of Britain: What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be, but it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history will be written by the Iraqis. GARY GIBBON: So the troop numbers have come down from their height at the time of the war. At the end of last year, it was thought they might be able to come down faster.It's now possible that, after dropping below 5,000 this summer, they carry on dropping periodically until they hit around 2,000 to 3,000. Then, they don't drop below that for quite a while. TONY BLAIR: The best guide for our own actions is, in fact, the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government are keen on the proposal to make sure that the Baghdad security plan is put in place and implemented. They are equally keen that the British drawdown in Basra. GARY GIBBON: The Conservative leader David Cameron said Mr. Blair should have used what could be his last common statement on Iraq to commitment himself to an inquiry into what went wrong. Longstanding opponents of the war told Mr. Blair it would stain his record in government. MENZIES CAMPBELL, MP, Liberal Democrat Leader: We will leave behind a country on the brink of civil war, where reconstruction has stalled, where corruption is endemic, and a region which is a lot less stable than it was in 2003. MALCOLM RIFKIND, MP, Conservative Party: I'm afraid he still has the obligation to apologize to this house and to this country for his foolish decision to take this country to war in the first place. GARY GIBBON: Mr. Blair suggested that, if the Iraqi troops took over the patrolling of Basra, British troop casualties might fall.The statement came on the day of the funeral of Private Luke Simpson, killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, as he returned from a routine patrol. Around 600 attended the funeral at Howden in East Yorkshire. Luke Simpson was the 101st British soldier to die in action in Iraq.