BRIGHTON, England, AP – Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq had taken him by surprise, but he insisted British troops would stay as long as the Iraqi government needed them.

As his governing Labour Party gathered for its annual conference, Blair said he had not set a deadline to withdraw some 8,500 British soldiers from Iraq.

&#34There is no arbitrary date being set,&#34 he said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.