By Chris Marsden | WSWS
Britain’s has completed evacuating its 550 troops from Basra Palace and announced that Basra itself will be handed over to Iraqi control “in the autumn”. Basra is the last of five provinces in southern Iraq to be handed over to the Iraqis. It leaves Britain with just 5,000 troops located at Basra’s airport.
The divergence over Iraq between Britain and the United States was given graphic expression by President Bush’s unannounced visit to Iraq yesterday. Bush held a “war council” that included top White House and Pentagon officials along with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, whose report on the US “surge” is to be delivered to Congress next week
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