LONDON — Britain has allowed the deteriorating security in southern Iraq to get worse, a retired U.S. general said Wednesday, warning that American troops may need to plug the gaps if Prime Minister Gordon Brown withdraws significant numbers of British soldiers.

Former U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane, who was vice chief of staff at the time the Iraq war was launched in 2003, said Britain never deployed enough troops to properly stabilize the region around the southern city of Basra.

His criticism, which follows other sharp comments from U.S. and British military officials and analysts, could be aimed at pressuring Brown as he weighs a winter withdrawal of troops.

"I think there is a general disengagement from what the key issues are around Basra," Keane told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.