TONY Blair has pledged that British forces will not "walk away" from Iraq or Afghanistan until their job there is done.

He insisted that British troops were carrying out an important mission for world security.

He said: "If we walk away before the job is done, we will leave a situation in which the very people we are fighting everywhere, including the extremism in our own country, are heartened and emboldened and we can't afford that to happen. So we have got to see that job through."

His comments follow a warning last week by head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, that the British presence in Iraq was "exacerbating" difficulties Britain faced around the world.

Mr Blair stressed that Gen Dannatt was not calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. "In no sense was he saying - and neither should anybody say - that we should get out of Iraq before the job is done.

"It is our policy to come out of Iraq when the job is done. What is very dangerous is any suggestion we get out before the job is done."

He said pulling out of Basra immediately would be "disastrous", adding that was also the view of Sir Richard. The ambition for Iraq - shared by the Army chief and the government - was "a functioning democracy, a functioning economy and where the security is in the hands of the Iraqi forces".

'Absurd'

He said that it was "absurd" to say that the military action in Iraq or Afghanistan was contributing to extremism in Britain.

"You can't end up in a situation where you say, when we are on the side of ordinary, decent Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan who want their own democratic government, when we are there at the behest of those governments with a full United Nations resolution, that we, when we are protecting those countries against people who are driving car bombs into markets and mosques and so on, that we somehow are causing their extremism.

"It's absurd and you won't defeat this extremism until you take that argument head on. And the real problem we've got is that it has got to be taken head on in the Muslim community as well."

Speaking at his monthly Downing Street press briefing, he added: "The reason why the Western world has not yet got this strategy right . . . is we're buying into this sense of grievance which, I say again to you, is absurd in relation to those two countries. If these people are trying to stop us there, our response should not be to give up and walk away but to fight them."

Mr Blair said he would be "absolutely astonished" if a report being prepared in the US by a team led by former Secretary of State James Baker concluded we should get out of Iraq.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell has called for a new strategy in Iraq.

"Tony Blair fails to accept Richard Dannatt was talking about a matter of months, not years, as the length of time before British troops withdraw from Iraq. The Prime Minister must outline a new strategy for Iraq."