US, Britain plan to speed up Iraq pullout

"We are not about to cut and run. But the aim is to have a strategy which enables the Iraqis to take control as quickly as possible and allows us to leave as quickly, as soon as possible," the anonymous source told the influential daily paper.

The "gear change" has been agreed by London and Washington, according to the source.

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Elsewhere The Times said that the deployment of additional British troops in Iraq was being delayed to avoid the impression that they were a direct replacement for Spanish troops who are withdrawing following a change of government in Madrid.

British Defence Minister Geoff Hoon said Sunday that there was no need to seek parliamentary approval for troop reinforcements.

"Clearly if the commanding officer on the ground says at very short notice we require extra troops because of some significant deterioration in the security it would irresponsible of me not to agree to that request and agree to it very promptly," Hoon said.

The defence minister dismissed a press report on Sunday that Britain may double its troop strength in Iraq, currently around 8,000.

"I simply do not know where reports that the UK presence could double have come from," he said.

Most British papers foresee an extra 2,000 British troops being sent to boost the coalition forces in Iraq.

In another report Iraqi interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari warned yesterday that any precipitate withdrawal by US-led coalition troops risked sparking civil war.

"A premature departure will mean disaster," Zebari told a conference on the political future of Iraq at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in this Dead Sea resort.

"Division and civil war will materialise if these forces are withdrawn prematurely. They are at the moment the best guarantors for Iraq's unity and .. for preventing regional intervention in Iraqi affairs," said Zebari, who hails from Iraq's long-oppressed Kurdish minority.