President Bush’s top commander in Iraq will meet Gordon Brown next week to halt growing transatlantic tensions over the British troop withdrawal from Basra.

General David Petraeus will travel to Britain and, in a coordinated effort with 10 Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence, dismiss any suggestion of growing acrimony between Washington and London.

The general arrives in London after several Republican and Democrat senators accused Britain this week of abandoning southern Iraq to Shia death squads.

The senators’ comments, during two days of testimony to Congress by General Petraeus on the Iraq surge, follow public criticism by several American military officials over the British relocation to the edge of Basra.

Jack Keane, a retired general and one of the architects of Mr Bush’s surge strategy, said this week that domestic British politics, not military reality, led to the pullout. Although the withdrawal was long planned, White House strategists were disappointed that it occurred just before General Petraeus’s progress report and a speech by Mr Bush today backing a continuation of the surge.

General Petraeus, who will meet Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff, has reined in critics of Britain within the US military.

His visit also comes at a time of growing tensions between Britain and the US over the War on Terror. Gordon Brown believes that Washington is so “fixated” by Iraq that it risks losing the war in Afghanistan.

General Petraeus, who told Congress that the surge was working and should continue into next year, said yesterday that the British handover to Iraqi forces at Basra Palace had been “quite orderly” and the right thing to do.

He told reporters that he did not envisage American troops having to replace the British in Basra, although he said that US special forces might be needed to fight alongside Iraqi special forces in the region. He conceded that there were still lots of challenges in Basra, including Shia militia. But he said that he had “every expectation” that the Iraqis would bring stability to their second largest city.

Senior figures in No 10 and the Ministry of Defence rejected suggestions in the Senate that Britain had abandoned Basra. Last month, amid growing dissent in Washington over the Basra pullout, Mr Browne and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, responded to the US critics. Writing in The Washington Post, they called the criticism misplaced and said that Britain had not failed in Basra.

Mr Bush will announce a withdrawal of about 30,000 US troops by next August, leaving about 130,000 – the presurge level – in place. The President will, however, place more conditions on the pace of reductions after that than even Mr Petraeus did in his testimony.

Although Mr Bush’s address will make conciliatory gestures to war critics, including the withdrawal of several thousand troops at the end of the year, he is in effect preparing to hand the Iraq war to his successor. Despite calls from Democrats to end the war, White House strategists believe that Mr Bush will retain enough votes on Capitol Hill to thwart efforts for a large withdrawal until after he leaves office.

Senators’ outrage

“ The British . . . are huddled in the airport at Basra. Lawless gangs of marauders of Shia militia are in charge in Basra. The four provinces of southern Iraq are gone; they are lawless” Chuck Hagel, Republican

“ [Is] it acceptable that the British leave four southeastern provinces . . . and leave it to the local militia to fundamentally fight it out? If that is acceptable, then why is it not acceptable to other parts of the country?” John Kerry, Democrat

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