London: According to a report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG), UK and US troops could be embroiled in Iraq for 'decades' as the war is still in its early stages.
The report, entitled 'Iraq and the War on Terror: Twelve Months of Insurgency', said that the al-Qaeda could keep the US troops tied up in Iraq for many years, and UK would only withdraw troops if it broke off its relationship with US.
This would be a major policy shift for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, representing the difference in its relationship with the US in the past eight years.
"In present circumstances it is highly unlikely, yet the war is likely to cast an increasing shadow over UK policy in the next year," the report said.
Professor Paul Rogers, Britain's foremost experts on terrorism and modern conflict, is one of the contributors in the report.
The report said that al-Qaeda had won recruits by portraying the US presence in Iraq as a 'neo-Christian occupation of a major Islamic state'.
However, the report warns that the US troop withdrawal would be a ?foreign policy disaster greater than the retreat from Vietnam?.
Mentioning the fact that the al-Qaeda wants to fulfill its aim in Iraq over a period of decades, the war in Iraq might well be measured over a similar time span.
The report described the likelihood of a peaceful withdrawal of British troops from southeast Iraq as 'minimal' unless London was prepared to 'break' with Washington.
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