By Cernig

And so the coalition of the unwilling dwindles even further. Even UK conservatives abandoned Iraq as the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, some years ago - as did the bulk of the British populace. Now Gordon Brown has flown to Bagdhad to announce a withdrawal of British forces by the end of July next year. Only 300 troops will remain to train Iraqi forces.

Brown had to spin it as completing a noble exercise in "the tasks of overthrowing a dictatorship, the task of building a democracy for the future and defending it against terrorism", of course, but I don't see him, his ministers or his senior officers heaving any kind of sigh except one of relief. Britain only stayed because of the "special relationship", not because anyone believed the narrative Bush and Blair concocted any more.

Oh, and the Iraqis tacked five other nations with a smaller troop presence, including Romania, El Salvador and Estonia, onto Britain's withdrawal agreement