Ex-British envoy sees troops in Iraq for ‘some years’

LONDON – The insurgency in Iraq will last at least five years, Britain’s former envoy to Baghdad said Wednesday, predicting that the U.S.-led coalition would still have at least 100,000 troops in the country in 2007.

A combination of foreign terrorists, Sunni extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists could continue fighting for several years, said Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was Britain’s U.N. ambassador before the war and stepped down as London’s senior representative in Baghdad last year.

“I think (the insurgency) has got at least five years of life, because there are men and there are materials,” Greenstock said in an interview with Sky News channel’s World News Tonight show.

It was not clear if he meant the insurgency could last five more years or was counting from the start of the war in 2003.

“There’s motivation there from the Sunni insurgents, the leftover Baathists, the Saddamists and … the al-Qaida franchise; there’s men and materials there for several years of insurgency,” he added.

Greenstock said he believed the U.S.-led coalition “would still be in six figures at the beginning of 2007.”

“The numbers will keep on going down and it may be some years, really some years before the last coalition soldiers leave Iraq,” he added.

However, he said the possibility remained that any future “demagogic” Iraqi government could ask foreign troops to leave the country.

Nearly 160,000 U.S. troops are currently in Iraq, supported by just under 24,000 mostly noncombat personnel from 27 countries. Britain has the second-largest contingent with 8,000 troops in Iraq.

Greenstock is a widely respected career diplomat who has remained loyal to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government since stepping down but has been critical of the war’s aftermath. He has not questioned the decision to take military action to topple Saddam but has complained that the U.S.-led coalition failed to plan adequately for after the war.