US ready to step into Basra as British withdraw.

If the US step into the Basra area there will be just more bloodshed and the need for more US troops in Iraq. However, the US will not be willing to sit back and see the southern oil fields fall into the wrong hands. Although neither of the two main groups fighting for control are pro-US.

US ready to step into Basra as British pull out
Posted 4 hours 38 minutes ago

The US military is ready to intervene in southern Iraq to quell any unrest as British forces prepare to pull out from their last base in the oil port of Basra, the Pentagon says.

Press reports in London suggest that the British departure and handover of security control to Iraqi forces may be imminent, although the official line is that it will take place before the end of the year.

US forces will not allow any security advances in southern Iraq to be abandoned, Brigadier General Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning at the Department of Defence, told reporters.

As requirements on the ground dictate, "they will reposition forces with the battlefield geography in mind so that they don't give up gains that they've made in different areas, including in Basra and the south," he said.

"As the UK forces reposition ... all that will be taken into account as well as what the security needs for each region are," Sherlock said.

When the 500 British troops evacuate a former palace of Saddam Hussein in Basra and withdraw to a desert airbase, they will leave behind a city in the grip of a brutal turf war between rival militia.

-AFP