A former military commander says that British forces in Basra face a stark choice to curb the rising death toll - either retake the city or abandon it.
Colonel Bob Stewart, who led British forces in Bosnia, said casualties were mounting because the Army was not able to "dominate the ground", which was allowing insurgents to operate in the area.
Col Stewart told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Iraqi forces meant to replace British troops "are not good enough".
He said: "Either we retake control of that ground so that people can't, for example, rocket the Basra base or put an improvised explosive device at very short notice on to a route that one of our strike forces is going down, or we abandon it.
"The choice is either retake it and dominate the ground or accept that we can't."
The retired officer added: "Perhaps we have been a bit too hasty in handing Basra back to the Iraqi army."
Col Stewart said UK forces in Iraq were in a "pretty invidious position".
He said: "If we re-dominate the ground, we are then in a position to stop the attacks happening, but then we delay our departure.
"If we don't re-dominate the ground, we have to accept casualties.
"That's pretty Catch-22 to me."
