BRIGHTON, Sept 25: Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday he was surprised by the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq, but vowed to keep British troops there until Iraqi security forces could fend for themselves. Blair made his remarks to BBC television before the start of the annual conference of his Labour Party which was set once more to be riven by debate over Britain’s decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Asked if he had expected Iraq to be so hard, Blair replied: “No. I didn’t expect quite the same sort of ferocity from every single element in the Middle East that came in and was doing their best to disrupt the political process.”

Blair said it was crucial for not just stability in the Middle East but for world security for the multinational forces to defeat “this type of global terrorism and insurgency in Iraq.”

The prime minister said the 8,500 British troops currently deployed in Iraq would withdraw once Iraqi forces can ensure security on their own and once United Nations-mandated efforts for democratic institutions take root.

“What we do depends on the job being done. There is no arbitrary date being set,” Blair said.

The Observer newspaper reported on Sunday that Britain and the United States would present a blueprint to the Iraqi parliament next month for British troops to begin withdrawing from May next year.

Blair said he had “not heard that” but added the US-led coalition and Iraqi government have long discussed plans for Iraqi forces to take over security tasks from the multinational forces.

The Sunday Telegraph offered an alternative version, saying it has learned that the Ministry of Defence “is still planning to deploy large numbers of troops” until at least January 2008.

British Defence Secretary John Reid, interviewed by the Sky News channel, repeated previous remarks that British troops could start handing over to Iraqi forces sometime next year.

“I don’t think that anybody has ever suggested our troops will be out of Iraq by next May,” Reid told Sky. “What I have said is in the course of next year there could be the start of the process of the handover to the Iraqis.”

A YouGov opinion poll for Five News television, released on Sunday after several thousand people joined an anti-war march in London, found that 57 per cent of respondents thought British forces should pull out.

Debate over Britain’s presence in Iraq intensified last week after Iraqi police arrested two undercover British soldiers.

The Iraqi authorities were enraged meanwhile that British troops smashed down a police station wall in the search for the pair.

An Iraqi judge has since issued an arrest warrant for the two British soldiers in connection with the deaths of several Iraqis in a confrontation with British forces.—AFP