Britain's Iraq war is ending. Who won?

By Peter Graff -Analysis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has all but called an end to Britain's Iraq war, but as the country's largest overseas campaign in more than 50 years comes to a close there is little sense of victory.

In less than two weeks British troops will hand over security responsibility for Basra, the last province they control in southern Iraq, to Iraqi troops.

Nearly five years after then-Prime Minister Tony Blair sent 46,000 troops to help the United States topple Saddam Hussein, Britain is keeping in place a force of just several thousand, confined to a single air base near Basra city.

London says its troops have done their job well.

"The reason why security is so much better here, the reason why things have improved, is because of you, because of what you've achieved," Brown told some of the remaining troops during a brief visit on Sunday evening to their last main base.

But in a sign of just how precarious Britain's presence has become, journalists travelling with him were not even permitted to report the visit until he was safely out of the country.

Critics say Basra is now a place where Shi'ite militiamen administer justice and spray paint walls with threats to kill women who go out without veils. Interpreters who worked for the British have been kidnapped, tortured and killed.

Some experts have concluded Britain lost its war.