LONDON, July 13 (KUNA) — Britain’s most senior army officer in Iraq insisted Friday that the Multi-National Force (MNF) was "making a difference" amid encouraging signs that the Iraqi government would be able to take over security operations.
Lieutenant General Graham Lamb, deputy commander of the MNF, told BBC radio Iraqis were beginning to engage with his troops.
He denied the situation was a lost cause, stressing, "This is difficult, it is dammed dangerous, but I have no question in my mind that we are making a difference.
"Are we moving towards a better life for Iraq and an opportunity for this nation to succeed? I believe so and have never doubted that." Speaking from Baghdad, General Lamb added, "(The Iraqi authorities) are now actively engaged in a way that senses we are in the point of transition.
"We have been responsible and accountable. They are now moving on to that position which we have historically held for the last four years and I see them positively taking that engagement very seriously.
"I look across the whole of Iraq and I see a whole range of encouraging signs … I see some changes down in Basra as we see, in effect, the Iraqis engaging, creating the forces that are going to take over and therefore move that point of transition," he continued.
General Lamb told the BBC, "I do sense that we are seeing this transition and change, and that responsibility and accountability being moved from us across to the Iraqis who are, across this country, taking ownership of the problems they face and their future." He was speaking after the US House of Representatives voted last night to withdraw American troops by next Spring.
For his part, Britain’s main opposition Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, a member of the House of Commons Defence Committee, warned against setting a timetable for withdrawal.
Jenkin, who has just returned from Iraq, told BBC radio, "Iraqi security forces do not have the capability of operating independently." And he added, "I don’t think you can put a timeline on it. If American troops pull out in short order, we will be creating ourselves a huge strategic problem as well as betraying all the powers of the region who are depending on the British and Americans there to sort out what we started."