UK to send 30,000 to help oust Saddam

Britain is preparing to join America in a full-scale invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein from power early next year.

The British armed forces are to commit at least 30,000 troops from all three services to an overwhelming air, land and sea campaign commanded by the US. In the past six months British troops' commitments in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Sierra Leone have all been reduced in preparation for the attack.

It is understood that President Bush has accepted that the US will not be able to replicate the size or make-up of the allied coalition that invaded Iraq in 1991 and is relying on Britain for moral and military support.

American military chiefs believe that the mission to remove Saddam can be achieved with a force of about 250,000 troops, aided by an uprising of Iraqi dissidents inside the country.