BRITISH troops could be stuck in Iraq for up to four years if pro-Saddam Hussein militias continue to undermine coalition efforts to bring security to the country.

Defence sources say that under current plans the British ground force — currently 17,000 soldiers — would be in Iraq for between one and two years. But with attacks on allied forces increasing that commitment could double.

Plans are already being made to earmark troops to go to Iraq next year for what would be a third phase of troop deployments.

In an interview with The Times yesterday, MajorGeneral Freddy Viggers, a British commander newly appointed to serve at the US military headquarters in Baghdad, gave warning that coalition forces in Iraq risked becoming bogged down in a Balkans-style policing mission unless they could capture or kill Saddam Husssein and prove his Baathist regime was finished.

Around 1,600 British troops are still in Bosnia after 11 years.

Major-General Patrick Cordingley, commander of the 7th Armoured Brigade — the Desert Rats — in the 1991 Gulf War, said yesterday that the coalition faced a classic dilemma. He said that the longer coalition troops stayed in Iraq, the more resentful the Iraqis would become.

“But the American and British troops cannot possibly leave Iraq until the country is absolutely secure and back in Iraqi hands,” he said.

Sources close to Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said that he was determined to avoid a Bosnia-style commitment. One said that the Bosnia mission had gone on so long because the people had grown accustomed to depending on the Nato-led force for security. This was not going to happen in Iraq. “The Iraqis have to take responsibility for themselves,” the source said.

Yesterday it emerged that two, not one, American troop convoys were attacked on Sunday, and yesterday a suspected landmine placed in a road tunnel detonated under a civilian car, injuring two Iraqis.

They were the latest in a string of attacks that are seriously undermining attempts by the Americans to eliminate the last vestiges of the old regime. Nearly 50 American troops have been killed since the official end of the war on May 1, almost half the number who died during the actual fighting. The British have lost two soldiers since the main combat operation ended.

In another sign of growing concern about post-war developments in Iraq, Tony Blair has appointed one of the Foreign Office’s most senior diplomats to go to Baghdad to work with the Americans. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s Ambassador to the United Nations, is to become the Prime Minister’s special envoy.

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