BASRA, Iraq, Dec 8 (AFP) - British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon visited troops in southern Iraq Wednesday, rendezvousing with Scotland's Black Watch battalion, just back from a dangerous mission and heading home to an uncertain future.
The soldiers at the Shaiba base outside Basra put on a brave face for the man who is due to decide the destiny of their historic regiment before Christmas as part of a far-reaching defence review that will see four regiments eliminated or merged.
All of the 850-strong Black Watch unit in Iraq are due to go home within the week, having prolonged their stay by a month. While Hoon praised them, he offered little in the way of reassurance.
"The Black Watch are a famous regiment," he said. "It is important that we recognise their history and tradition, seek where we can to preserve their identity but at the same time also recognise that it's important that we have a structure and organisation for our army which reflects the kinds of pressures on them in this 21st century."
The review is supposed to create a more mobile and agile force in the wake of the end of the Cold War, during which relatively static units anticipated a Soviet attack through Western Europe.
In the future, the government says, soldiers will be freer to choose where they go and the training they get, although numbers will have to be cut, as well as regimental identities.
"It can take two years to change a battalion. You move place, move your family, spouses have to leave their jobs, kids have to change schools, it's a lot of effort," said Major David Steel of another Scottish regiment, the Royal Highland Fusiliers.
The Black Watch had been sent north to a base southwest of the Iraqi capital on October 27 to assist US soldiers before US and Iraqi forces launched a massive assault on the Sunni rebel stronghold Fallujah.
They lost five men during their month-long mission, and now most are thinking more about getting back to their families and the future of their regiment than this ministerial visit.
"We've had a hectic time up north, and now I'm just looking forward to going home," said Scott Shaw, under drizzling rain.
In an interview with BBC Radio Four, Hoon said Britain had no plans to send the troops back in to the American zone, as the previous mission had been an "exceptional deployment to help with a particular operational situation."
"We have received no further requests to go into the American zone, nor do we have any plans to do so. What is right is that we keep troop numbers under review in the light of the security situation," he said.
Hoon said the troops were "in very good heart, they have been doing a tremendous job and they will continue to do that job, as they are required, in this part of Iraq."
Numerous observers in Britain saw the redeployment, barely a week before US elections, as a campaign sop to President George W. Bush by Prime Minister Tony Blair, his main ally in Iraq.
But Major General Bill Rollo, the officer commanding British forces in Basra, has said there would be more temporary redeployments like that of the Black Watch "as and when" required.
And analysts say it is likely Washington will call on London again before planned elections on January 30 to help out by sending its soldiers to US-controlled areas of Iraq.
Family members, the media and opposition members of Parliament criticised Blair for the allegedly political decision to redeploy the Black Watch, but the troops themselves would rather move on.
"I firmly believe it was a military decision. It's the odd family members who disagree," said one of them.
"It's demoralising what they were saying on the news. They give us a bad name.
We're told to do something and we do it," he added.
Once Hoon left the Black Watch camp, the troops got on with packing, glad that the ceremony was over, but not willing to express displeasure at the visit.
Hoon, who flew in from Kuwait Wednesday morning, sat down with troops for a full English breakfast in the Basra mess before heading to a meeting of officers commanding the British contingent stationed in Iraq.
Britain has about 8,500 troops in relatively tame southern Iraq, around Basra, compared to 138,000 US troops in the centre and north.
In all, 74 British soldiers have been killed in combat or accidents since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year.

12/08/2004 20:22 GMT - AFP