Gordon Brown has gone back on the promise he made on 8 October last year that troop numbers in Iraq would be cut to 2,500 this spring.
Troops have now been told that 4,000 must stay until the end of the year. 1,500 had been told they would be coming home this April but have now been informed that they will not be returning until the end of June, when they will be replaced.
The decision was allegedly based on ongoing rocket attacks on the base at Basra airport and on the perceived need of the inexperienced Iraqi army for British support.
British atrocities
The announcement followed fresh evidence of atrocities carried out by British soldiers in Iraq. On 16 March, Phil Shiner, a public interest lawyer, told an ecumenical group that there was "no material difference between the two forces, US and UK, when it came to degrading treatment" of Iraqis: "The litany of sexual and religious humiliation is endless." He added: "there are now witness statements prepared for UK High Court proceedings by myself and my colleague Martyn Day, which suggest that, in May 2004, UK soldiers in Abu Naji facility may have executed up to 20 Iraqis, tortured another nine, and subjected some of the 20 dead to unspeakable atrocities before final dispatch."
Medical certificates demonstrate that eyes were gouged from two prisoners, and another had his penis severed, before their dead bodies were delivered by the British army to an Iraqi hospital