The United States and Britain are considering the withdrawal of more than half of the coalition troops from Iraq by mid-2006, a leaked memo from Britain's Defense Ministry was quoted as saying on Sunday.

The memo, reportedly written by British Defense Minister John Reid, was quoted by The Mail on Sunday newspaper as saying Britain will reduce its troops in Iraq from 8,500 to 3,000 by mid-2006.

Britain, which heads a foreign force in south Iraq, wants to hand over to Iraqi control of Al-Muthanna and Maysan provinces in October 2005 and the other two provinces, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006, the memo was reported to have said.

"This should lead to a reduction in the total level of UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel," the document said. It said the planned withdrawal of British troops would save about 1 billion pounds (1.74 billion US dollars) a year.

The memo also said Washington plans to hand over control of security to Iraqi forces in 14 out of 18 Iraqi provinces by early 2006. This means that US troops in the country will be slashed to 66,000 from about 140,000.

But a British Defense Ministry spokeswoman said Sunday that the two countries' military withdrawal from Iraq is only under consideration as one of many options and that no decision has been made.

Reid, in response to the Mail on Sunday report, said in a statement, "We have made it absolutely plain we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed. No decision on the future force posture of UK forces has been taken."

"We have always said that it is our intention to hand over the lead in fighting terrorists to the Iraqi security forces as their capacity increases," the statement said.

"We therefore continually produce papers outlining possible options and contingencies. This is but one of a number of such papers produced over recent months covering various scenarios. This is prudent planning," it said.

Source: Xinhua