LONDON, April 21 (UPI) -- A senior British Conservative parliamentarian called Friday for British and U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.
Michael Ancram, the former shadow foreign secretary and shadow defense secretary, said that coalition troops were "in danger of becoming the problem" in the country.
His comments, in an article for the Daily Mail newspaper, contrast with the official policy of the Conservative Party, which maintains that troops should remain in Iraq as long as necessary.
He claimed that Iraq was effectively in a state of civil war and that it would be both "pointless and dangerous" for troops to remain there.
Comparing the Iraq conflict to the Vietnam war, Ancram questioned what more British troops could do. "Having set out at the beginning to be part of the solution it is now sadly evident that we are in danger of becoming the problem," he wrote.
"It is time now for us to get out of Iraq with dignity and honor while we still can. Whatever word games Tony Blair, Jack Straw and John Reid may try to play, everyone knows that terrorism is rampant and that Iraq is effectively in a state of civil war.
"We have no place in Iraq in a civil war. We cannot and must not take sides between Sunnis and Shias," he said.
Ancram said he had voted for the invasion in 2003 because of U.S. and British claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but admitted: "On this I was wrong."
Once it became apparent that no WMD existed, he continued to support the war in the hope it would improve regional stability, he said, but there was now no prospect of this.
