Blair thanks troops on surprise Iraq visit

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today paid tribute to the British forces in Iraq, giving thanks “from the bottom of my heart”.

He said they were “new pioneers of soldiering in the 21st century” and also warned of the continuing danger from “a particular virus of Islamic extremism”.

Iraq was a “test case” of the international community’s ability to transform brutal and repressive states into democracies, he said.

The Prime Minister’s comments came as he addressed the British servicemen and women gathered at the Shaibah logistics base near Basra, during a whistle-stop visit to Iraq.

Mr Blair told the troops: “It’s a great honour for me to be here today. The first thing I want to say is a huge thank you for the work you’re doing here.

“We know how much pride people have taken in Britain in the work that you have done and that reputation of the British armed forces – I don’t think it’s ever been higher than it is today.

“Whatever opinions people had on the war there is absolutely nobody back home who has anything other than enormous pride in the British armed forces and rightly so.

“The British armed forces today are the new pioneers of soldiering in the 21st century because the threat that we face today is not the one that certainly my generation grew up with.

“It’s not the prospect of a big world war where countries are fighting each other.”

The threat now was chaos, said the Prime Minister adding: “That chaos comes today from terrorism, from a particular virus of Islamic extremism that’s a perversion of the true faith of Islam but is none the less incredibly dangerous.”

The other threat came from repressive states building up arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, said the Premier. He said no democratic government “that owes its position to the will of the people would spend billions of pounds on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons while their people live in poverty”.

Mr Blair said he had believed “passionately” in the conflict with Iraq saying: “If we had backed away from that we would never have been able to confront this threat in the other countries where it exists.”

Mr Blair ended his brief address saying: “From the bottom of my heart thank you very much indeed.”

Mr Blair arrived for his surprise visit to Iraq early this morning in a RAF C17 transport aircraft which had brought him from his Christmas holiday break in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

On his arrival at Basra airport the Premier was given a briefing by officers from 20 brigade in charge of the 10,000 British servicemen and women still based in Iraq.

They told him the security situation had “turned around” with no incidents involving direct fire having taken place since August.

Mr Blair also visited a new police training academy where 24 British officers are helping to train a new civilian police force.

The Prime Minister was going on to have talks with local political leaders before flying back to London tonight.