Leading article: A foreign withdrawal for advantage at home

It is, of course, welcome that a part of the British military contingent in southern Iraq is to come home. Our belief that British troops should never have been in Iraq in the first place does not detract either from our respect for the professional job they have done, or from our relief that up to one quarter of the force could be nearing the end of their mission.

But the Prime Minister's announcement that 1,600 men and women are to be withdrawn in coming months, with another 500 likely to follow by late summer, suggests the classic scenario of a defeated leader deciding to declare victory and leave. For all Tony Blair's insistence that the criteria for reductions have been met, that the Iraqis are now well-enough trained to take over responsibility for security, and that Basra is very far from being Baghdad, there was much in his Commons statement that invited scepticism.

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This was partly because it was stuffed with uncertainties and ambiguities. What was presented as a major withdrawal was in fact smaller than had been mooted. The time frame was left imprecise, and even if 1,600 troops are withdrawn by autumn, this means that 5,000 are staying, probably until the end of 2008. Mr Blair's list of districts still to be handed over to the Iraqi authorities also confirmed that the transfers are running quite seriously behind schedule. And why did he note in justification that most of the violence was not sectarian, but directed against British troops? It is almost half a year since the head of the British Army, Sir Richard Dannatt, made precisely this point, and advised an early withdrawal. Only now, it seems, has the Prime Minister accepted his argument.

More curiously, Mr Blair referred approvingly to the report of the US Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker - a report that was comprehensively rejected by President Bush. When MPs tried to clarify whether he agreed with the ISG or with Mr Bush, however, he insisted that the British withdrawals were made possible by the improved situation in the south and equivocated about engaging with Iran. He left the impression that he wanted to be seen as with, and against, the Americans at the same time. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, later said the coalition remained "intact".

The ambiguities in the Prime Minister's statement were second only to the delusions - the most striking of which was his adamant refusal to accept that the violence now engulfing Iraq had anything at all to do with the US and British invasion. It was, he said, exclusively terrorists and extremists who were to blame. Neither he, nor the Americans, nor anyone else, had any reason to apologise for upholding "our values".

If Mr Blair's statement seemed in many ways remote from the real disaster unfolding in Iraq, it matched all too obviously his immediate political requirements at home. It may be too charitable to suggest he is clearing the decks so that his successor, and his party, are not encumbered by the British troop presence in Iraq; removing Iraq from the agenda could also do David Cameron a favour. Rather, we seem to be looking at a prime minister who is trying to polish his image for posterity, even as his time is running out.

Unfortunately for Mr Blair, his misadventure in Iraq will go down in history as the fatal flaw of a promising prime minister. And if even the partial reduction in British troops results - as many feared yesterday - in a quagmire, a bloodbath, or both, to the shame of an ill-judged invasion will be added the irresponsibility of a withdrawal that was announced for reasons that were predominantly selfish, cynical and short term.