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 UK's Brown makes fact-finding visit to Iraq

 

 By Ross Colvin 2 hours, 1 minute ago  

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Britain's next prime minister, Gordon Brown, arrived in Iraq on Monday for a fact-finding visit as he weighs Britain's future involvement in a four-year-old war that has angered voters and led to calls for a speedy pullout.  

It is his first visit since being confirmed as the successor to

     Tony Blair, whose popularity waned over his support for the U.S.-led war. Aides to Brown said he wanted to "look and learn" before taking office on June 27. "This is very much an assessment more than anything else, a fact-finding trip," Brown, currently Britain's finance minister, told reporters traveling with him.  

 

Brown has said he wants to suggest new ideas but has ruled out an immediate pullout of British troops. That has not stopped the British media speculating he may speed up the withdrawal of troops to assuage public anger.  

He has always accepted responsibility for the cabinet decision to invade Iraq, but has also said mistakes were made in the aftermath of the invasion.  

His visit comes as the size of the British force in Iraq is being reduced by about 1,500 soldiers to 5,500 troops.  

Brown, who was accompanied by Defense Minister Des Browne, is due to hold talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, the top British general in Iraq, U.S. commander General David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador.  

Brown said in his talks with Maliki he would discuss national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sides and would want to hear suggestions about how to move the process forward.  

"On political reconciliation I want to know how they are going to move forward, and if I don't have suggestions from them I will put suggestions to them," he said.  

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad, epicenter of sectarian violence, to crack down on Shi'ite and Sunni Arab militants and buy time for Maliki's government to reach political compromises to form a real powersharing government with minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

 

 

RECONCILIATION, ECONOMY

 

 

Washington is demanding movement in key areas, such as revenue-sharing oil law, provincial elections and constitutional reforms. But analysts say the Shi'ite-led coalition government is weak and divided and incapable of meeting these benchmarks without external pressure.  

Nearly 30,000 extra U.S. troops have been sent to Iraq for the crackdown as British troops in the more stable Shi'ite south have begun reducing their numbers. But U.S. officials say they are confident Brown will not pull British troops out early.  

British forces have handed over security responsibility to Iraqis in three of the four provinces they were in. The remaining southern province of Basra is due to be transferred in the coming months.  

Brown said he would also talk to Maliki about the economy. With no letup in sight in the violence, unemployment and inflation are surging and infrastructure crumbling.  

"They are not short of money to be allocated to infrastructure, the problem is the actual spending of it," said Brown, who guided Britain through an uninterrupted 10 years of economic growth.  

Insurgents are attacking Iraq's infrastructure in their continuing campaign against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government, hitting bridges, oil pipelines and other key installations.  

A suicide car bomb attack on a bridge overpass south of Baghdad late on Sunday killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded six more, a U.S. military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Randy Martin, said on Monday.  

The soldiers, who had been manning a checkpoint, were killed when part of the span collapsed. The attack took place near Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad in an area notorious for attacks by al Qaeda insurgents.  

"I believe there were folks that were on or near the bridge span that collapsed. Folks were dug out of portions of the bridge that collapsed," Martin said.  

(Additional reporting by Paul Tait in Baghdad, and David Clarke in London)