British prepare for Basra handover

Final preparations are under way today to hand Basra province in southern Iraq over to the Iraqis.

Tomorrow’s handover is the biggest milestone on the road to eventual British withdrawal from Iraq, three months after British troops pulled out from the city of Basra itself towards their base at the airport.

Major Mike Shearer said yesterday British troops had pulled out of the city itself because their presence was felt to be “provocative” and said attacks had dropped dramatically since September as a result of the move.

Critics however say that the British are leaving Iraq without fulfilling its mission of establishing security in its area of responsibility.

Major Shearer admitted that big problems still remained in the province.

He said: “The solution to south-east Iraq will not be found at the end of a coalition gun, it will be found by Iraqis finding their own solutions to their own problems.

“We never pretended that we were going to hand over a province that had a white picket fence around it like a scene from the Stepford Wives.

“All we said we were doing was to get the security to a manageable state that is managed by the Iraqis.”

When asked if there was now better security in Basra on the eve of the formal handover than when British troops first entered, he said: “I really couldn’t answer that.

“The situation is different, when we arrived here they were living under the boot of Saddam Hussein, the order that they were living under was enforced order.

“What they are doing now is finding their own solutions.”

Senior military sources in Basra admitted yesterday that Britain had failed to grasp the area’s complexities for years which was partly responsible for prolonging the city’s problems.

The handover comes as a British soldier who died from injuries suffered in a road traffic accident in Basra became the 174th British military death since hostilities began in March 2003.

Guardsman Stephen Ferguson, 31, of 1st Battalion Scots Guards, who was originally from Lanarkshire, was travelling in a Warrior armoured vehicle when it was involved in an accident.

He was taken to the field hospital at Basra Air Station and flown to the UK for treatment, but died from his injuries yesterday.

His commanding officers and fellow members of 1st Battalion Scots Guards paid tribute to his loyalty and “wry and infectious” sense of humour.