LIBERAL Democrat leader Charles Kennedy told The Herald that pulling British troops out of Iraq would spell disaster.
Mr Kennedy was speaking after taking a 40-minute question-and-answer session with students at Farnham College as he launched the Lib-Dems' local election campaign.
Asked what he made of a newspaper article in which Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, said Britain should pull out of Iraq, Mr Kennedy said: "I don't agree with the thrust of the argument he made.
"Withdrawing British troops would be a recipe for complete disaster and more people would end up losing their lives, both the Iraqi civilians and the British forces.'
Mr Kennedy and his fellow Lib-Dems voted against the war, but he said: "We have to support the forces that are in action and let's hope that we can get as swift a resolution as possible with the minimum number of casualties on both sides."
The Lib-Dem leader, who was visiting the college for the second time, stressed his "prime focus in life" is to get the Liberal Democrats into government.
"We're certainly becoming stronger. We're a growing presence in British politics. There's no doubt that if you look at the standing we have at the moment, it's much higher than it has been before, so there are reasons in a party political sense to be optimistic."
l Virginia Bottomley has written to Mr Kennedy demanding to know why he did not tell her about his visit to Farnham. The South West Surrey MP says that he ignored a parliamentary convention dictating that MPs are warned of any visit by another politician to their constituency.
Mrs Bottomley wrote that the convention has been flouted "on every previous occasion the leader of your party has visited my constituency."