British involvement in Iraq to end
As Brown says British troops to leave by summer, we ask how the war affected the UK.
This week Iraqi politicians gave their approval to allow British and other non-US troops to remain in Iraq until July 2009. The decision came just in time, since the UN mandate for these troops is due to expire on December 31 this year.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said last week that he will pull out the 4,000 British troops currently in Iraq before next summer, thus bringing to an end British involvement in the country.
Inside Iraq this week looks at the impact of the Iraq war on Britain. How were British interests and its image abroad affected by the war? Was the special relationship between Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and George Bush, the outgoing US president, the main reason Britain supported the invasion of Iraq?
Our guests this week are John Wilks, a British government spokesman, George Joffe from the Center of International Studies, and Moustapha al-Hiti, a member of the Iraqi parliament from the National Dialogue Front.
This episode of Inside Iraq aired from Friday, December 26, 2008