EU/UK - US Ties Loosen over Iraq

Two weeks of kidnapping, mayhem, and carnage in Iraq, which has provoked a muscular US military response, has also drawn a deeper divide in US-European relations. Even with America's chief ally, Britain.

A robust US response to the Sunni and Shiite uprisings, which has left hundreds dead, has unsettled British military and political chiefs, who fret that it will alienate locals and the international community, both of whom are vital to the success of Iraqi transition.

"The Americans will find it very hard to institute democratic governance in Iraq if they are increasingly seen as the enemy of the Iraqi people, and that's what happens when civilians are killed on the battlefield," says Christopher Langton, who heads the defense analysis department at the London-based Institute for International Strategic Studies. "Once you are seen as the adversary it becomes harder and harder to persuade people that you are a force for good."

Officially, Downing Street denies major differences between the two allies, insisting that both want to stick to the June 30 timetable and secure greater UN involvement.

From the early days soon after the war was over, British troops quickly swapped helmets for berets and armored vehicles for foot patrols. True, they had the more tranquil south to deal with, while the Americans grappled with the restive Sunni triangle, but experts say there was more to it than that.

Britain's postcolonial heritage has theoretically equipped it well to dealing with situations like Iraq. A hostile local populace, a power vacuum, economic shambles, inexperienced local law enforcement bodies: British troops have seen it all before in the ruins of empire, and its military forces have long since been drilled in dealing with such situations, says Colonel Langton.

The Americans meanwhile "don't train to any great degree in low-intensity operations like peacekeeping and peace enforcement," Langton says. "All those aspects are practiced by the British.... It is quite fortunate that the British are not actually fighting alongside the Americans because they would find it very difficult to agree" with their tactics.