Army chief says no deadline for Iraq pullout(Britain)

[cal04]

Britain's top military commander has refused to put a deadline on the withdrawal of British soldiers from Iraq and says they may be redeployed to more dangerous parts of the country.

"How long we stay there is going to be event driven," General Mike Jackson told the Independent in an interview published on Monday. "The mission is to provide Iraq with its political and economic future."
He raised the prospect of more British soldiers being redeployed from the relative calm of their southern base in and around Basra.

Any such move would be deeply unpopular, with opinion polls suggesting most people are against the war in Iraq.Prime Minister Tony Blair, already facing a backlash over his support for the Iraq war, was criticised in parliament last month for the redeployment of 850 soldiers to a volatile area near Baghdad.

The move, attacked by critics for exposing the Black Watch troops to danger levels they have not been used to in the south, freed up U.S. forces for the offensive in the former rebel stronghold Falluja.
Four soldiers have died in suicide bombings since moving north.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=625034§ion=news

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=585402