Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Britain's armed forces aim to complete their mission and leave Iraq ``in a year or two or three,'' said Chief of the General Staff General Richard Dannatt.

``The army is exceedingly busy so I want to see this campaign successfully concluded,'' Dannatt, head of the Army, said in a Sky News interview. ``We want to get on with it.''

His comments followed an interview in the Daily Mail newspaper published today in which Dannatt was quoted as saying the U.K. should scale back its ambitions for a liberal, pro- Western government in Iraq and pull its forces out soon.

``The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East,'' he said, according to the Mail report. ``That was the hope, whether that was a sensible or naïve hope history will judge. I don't think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition.''

Dannatt said in the television interview that he stood by the comments in the Mail, though some of his remarks were taken out of context. He said the U.S. ``is our key ally in all of this'' and ``their timing and our timing will be one and the same.''

Support is waning among the British public for the deployment in Iraq as casualties mount. Forty British soldiers have been killed this year in Afghanistan and 119 have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. The U.K. has about 7,000 soldiers in Iraq, the second-largest force after the U.S.

An ICM Ltd. poll published Oct. 8 showed that 54 percent of Britons interviewed said the troops should be withdrawn from Iraq this year.

Iraqi Control

Dannatt said the U.K. has turned over control of security in two provinces to Iraqi security forces and is in the process of changing over a third. He said in the television interview that the presence of U.K. forces makes them a target.

``It is undoubtedly a fact that in certain places, certain parts of the country, because we are there we become targets of attack,'' he told Sky News.

Dannatt also said he discussed his comments with the U.K. Defence Secretary Des Browne in a telephone call last night.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Lysaght in London at blysaght@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 13, 2006 03:48 EDT