Beckett: A failed Iraq would threaten world security

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett today warned that a failed Iraq would pose as great a risk to international security as Afghanistan when it was controlled by the Taliban.

In a speech during a visit to Pakistan, Mrs Beckett painted a grim picture of the violence and destruction raging in Iraq, while insisting that international efforts to stabilise the country would continue.

“The consequences of a failure in Iraq now are every bit as stark as the failure in Afghanistan in the last decade,” Mrs Beckett told diplomats at an event organised by Pakistan’s Foreign Service Academy in Islamabad.

Iraq is “a country that risks becoming an ungoverned and lawless state in the heart of the most volatile region in the world: the Middle East.”

Britain plans to cut its military force in Iraq from 7,100 to about 5,500 in the coming months and hand more responsibility to Iraqi security forces.

It plans to send an additional 1,400 troops to southern Afghanistan, swelling the British contribution to the Nato-commanded force there to 7,700.