It is hard to see how the job is done in Basra when thousands of American soldiers are being rotated into the province as British troops prepare to leave.

They will be training the police, mentoring the border guards and may even be required to embed with the Iraqi army, the flagship product of six years of British efforts in southern Iraq.

American experts will also be taking over from British diplomats and contractors to push on with initiatives, dreamt up by Britain, to improve the economy and encourage investment.

“They’re steeling our thunder,” one British soldier joked when asked what he thought about the growing American presence on the main British airport base outside Basra.

British troops took command of Iraq’s four southern-most provinces after the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, but questions mounted about their ability to tackle a growing, Iranian-backed Shia militia, particularly in Basra.

An Iraqi-led operation, supported by US and British forces, eventually wrested back control of the city last April. Since then the US military has retained a presence, compensating for security gaps that Britain is unable to fill.

Lieutenant Colonel Ed Lowe arrived at the increasingly-Americanised British base a few weeks ago to command hundreds of US military police who will mentor Basra’s fledgling policemen in stations around the city.

“The British didn’t do police transition teams,” said the American officer. “They may not have had the forces to be able to do that, so we bring that to the table.” Gordon Brown says that he will be able to withdraw Britain’s remaining soldiers from Iraq by next summer because their tasks have been achieved. This may be true but only because the goal posts have been moved.

It is hard to believe that the original intent was to deploy British troops to fight in southern Iraq and invest British taxpayers’ money in a range of reconstruction projects only to hand over to the US military.

Surely it would be better for British interests and Britain’s nation-building reputation to see the job really done until the end, when Basra and the rest of the oil-rich south is secure enough to be left to the Iraqi authorities alone.

Instead the US military and a beefed up US diplomatic presence are set to move in and take over from where we left off. Their timing could not be better. Thanks to improved security, reconstruction projects are at last bearing fruit and foreign companies are beginning to invest

“Basra is of strategic importance,” said Ramon Negron, director of the United States’ Regional Embassy Office at the British airport base.

Floating on one of the world’s largest oil reserves and boasting Iraq’s only seaport, Basra “will be one of those (places) where we will have a lasting presence”, he added.

Britain will also retain a footprint in the south but British influence and future efforts look set to be hugely overshadowed by the incoming US mission.

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