LONDON - An adviser to the U.S. military said British troops have lost control of the Iraqi city of Basra and face an "ugly'' withdrawal in the coming months, a British newspaper reported.
Stephen Biddle, a member of a group that advised U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq last year, told the Sunday Times that "insurgents are calling the shots'' in the southern city.
"I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history,'' Biddle was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The insurgents "in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of town.''
British forces have already been moving from a combat role to aiding Iraqi forces in southern Iraq, and Britain is expected to hand over control of Basra to Iraqi troops in the next few months.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also promised to make a statement in October on the future of the 5,500 British troops in the region.
Biddle, a military analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, said insurgents and militia groups were likely to target British soldiers with ambushes, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades as they leave.
"It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat,'' Biddle told the paper. "It will be ugly and embarrassing.''
A total of 168 British personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Biddle was a member of a group that spent weeks in Iraq last spring to advise on developing a new war strategy that envisions establishing security at the local level in Baghdad and elsewhere by the summer of 2008.
