BASRA, Iraq - Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to Iraq Friday for his second visit in a less than a month, plunging into talks with US and other allied commanders amid a burgeoning war policy debate at home.

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Britain, which has the largest troop contingent among the US allies, with about 7,000 soldiers in the Basra area, is planning to withdraw a large portion of them this year.

Gates said at the outset of his weeklong overseas trip that he realized the security situation in southern Iraq is different than in Baghdad, where the United States is building up its troop strength.

Gates met with Gen. George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, as well as Maj. Gen. Jonathan Shaw, the newly arrived commander of British forces here.

Gates and Casey later flew together in a C-17 cargo plane to Tallil air base, near the ancient city of Ur and about 10 miles from the southern city of Nasiriya. They met there with commanders from several coalition countries, including Australia, Poland, Romania and Denmark.

On his first visit to Iraq after being sworn in on Dec. 18, Gates met in Baghdad with US commanders and Iraqi government leaders just weeks before President Bush announced his new strategy for Iraq, which includes sending an additional 21,500 troops to Baghdad and the western Anbar province.

A British military spokesman in Basra told reporters that no "hard evidence" had been obtained of Iranian arms, money or weapons technology entering southern Iraq, but he added, "As a gut feeling we know there is Iranian influence" here. The predominantly Shiite Muslim areas of southern Iraq have historic ties to Iran, which is a predominantly Shiite nation.

The Bush administration has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs and contributing technology and bomb-making materials for insurgents to use against US and Iraqi security forces.

The British spokesman, Maj. Chris Ormond-King, also said it was possible that Basra province, which includes the city of the same name, could be turned over to full Iraqi government control by this spring. He said there is no firm timetable. Basra is Iraq's second-largest city after Baghdad.

Two of the other four provinces in southeastern Iraq that are the responsibility of the British-led multinational force were returned to full Iraqi control last year. A third, Maysaan province, is due to be turned over to the Iraqis in several weeks, Ormond-King said.

Although security in southern Iraq is better than in Baghdad, the British are still having some trouble with militia influence within the Iraqi police services.

Ormond-King said that on Dec. 25 British forces blew up a building in Basra that was the headquarters for a branch of the Iraqi police that was responsible for investigating serious crimes. The building was destroyed and the police unit was disbanded at the request of Iraqi authorities, the spokesman said, because the unit was committing, rather than investigating, serious crimes.

Of the 127 prisoners who were removed from the police building before it was blown up, many showed signs of torture, including electrical burns and wounds from beatings, Ormond-King said.

After meeting earlier with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Gates said Thursday that those two key US allies in the Persian Gulf remained skeptical of the Iraqi government and are not fully convinced Bush's plan for stabilizing Baghdad will succeed.

Gates told reporters both want the United States to succeed in Iraq. But asked whether they expressed full confidence in the Bush plan for quelling sectarian violence in Baghdad, the Pentagon chief replied, "I would say that they expressed hope."

Gates met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, at a palace in Qatar; on Wednesday night he met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a royal hunting lodge out of Riyadh, the capital.

Gates' overseas tour began in London and took him to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and to Afghanistan before he arrived in the Gulf on Wednesday.

Gates also told reporters Thursday that the Iranians are "overplaying their hand" on the world stage in a belief that setbacks in Iraq have weakened the United States. He said he told the Saudi and Qatari leaders he believes the Iranians "believe they have the United States at some disadvantage because of the situation in Iraq."

Many of the Gulf nations are worried about a rising Iranian influence in their region ¡ª a concern made more acute by the prospect for a further slide toward civil war in Iraq and its uncertain consequences for the United States.

Gates said that although he had publicly advocated negotiating with Iran as recently as 2004, he now advises against that.

"Right at this moment, there's really nothing the Iranians want from us," he said. "And so, in any negotiation right now we would be the supplicant," asking Iran to stop doing such things as enriching uranium for its nuclear program.

"We need some leverage, it seems to me, before we engage with the Iranians," he added. "And I think at some point engagement probably makes sense."