LONDON, May 12 (UPI) -- Britain will remain in Iraq until the "battle between democrats and terrorists" has been won, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday.
Questioned about the possibility of troop withdrawal at a Downing Street press conference, Blair said: "We'll stick there and see the job through, because that's what we do."
He acknowledged the worsening security situation but insisted progress is being made. Politically Iraq is changing and Iraqi security forces are growing in strength, he said.
The reason why efforts are under way to destabilize the political process is because the terrorists know bringing democracy to Iraq will mean "extremism is finished," he said.
"The whole basis of the extremists' case is that American power is used to suppress Muslim people. If what actually happens in Afghanistan and in Iraq and increasingly across the Middle East is that people are liberated from dictatorship, religious or secular, and start to govern themselves, that is an end to that extremism.
"And that's why I've always said what is at heart here is absolutely fundamental, it's a battle between democrats and terrorists."
