Blair faces vigorous skepticism among Britons

LONDON, January 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair has frequently made a series of statements setting out his unconditional support for a military assault on Iraq.

His statements, in effect, are significant not simply because they toe the American line completely, but because the prime minister has chosen to do so in defiance of MPs, cabinet and even public opinion within Britain itself.

Nowadays, Blair faces a series of tough hurdles as he seeks to win over public and party opinion - and hold on to cabinet unity - in relation to his Iraq strategy.

The latest hurdle represents in the opposition from more than half of his own cabinet if he tries to involve British troops in a U.S.-led war on Iraq that lacks the backing of the United Nations, the British daily The Guardian reported Wednesday, January 15.

The opposing ministers insist there has to be an overt U.N. mandate substantiated by credible evidence that President Saddam has hidden weapons of mass destruction.

"The government's policy can be summed up in two words, 'United Nations'. Stick to the UN and there will be infinitely less trouble or even no trouble at all," one senior minister said.

The opposing voices believe that London does not have any substantive evidence to back up claims that Iraq constitutes a grave danger to the rest of the world.

As one cabinet minister put it: "What everyone should be concentrating on is the evidence, and whether we and the U.S. can agree on what constitutes evidence."

"There will have to be justification, and discussion of a second U.N. resolution. We will not go in and zap them on Bush's say-so," another minister said.

They insist that a military action against Baghdad should be "in consistent with international law," implying that U.N. resolution 1441 alone would be insufficient to justify military action. "We need to go further," one minister said.

Many Labor MPs, in addition, sounded the same voice. They said Blair appeared to be President George W. Bush's "poodle" by modeling himself after Bush's gung-ho approach.

Veteran Labor Party member and former minister, Tony Benn, reiterated that Blair was “very likely” to lose his job if he took Britain into a war, the Telegraph quoted Benn as saying.

Earlier in the day, Blair met with backbench MPs from his own Labor party to convince them that his Iraq policy was right. But it was unclear how successful he was in swaying them, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Glenda Jackson, a Labor MP who opposes a war, said after Blair's meeting with Labor backbenchers that the mood was split 70-30 in the prime minister's favor. But another politician said the proportion was more like 50-50.

On the other extreme, Blair's colleagues are sympathetic to the prime minister's high-wire act in supporting Bush's warmongering. Attacking Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, prominent MPGordon Brown broke a three-month silence on Tuesday to say that "a dictator who persistently defies the international community" must be "punished".

Downing Street, in effect, adopted the toppling of President Saddam as an objective. The British government and the Foreign Office agree that an outcome that would leave President Saddam in power is no longer tenable.

"If Saddam is still in place at the end of this, that is equally unacceptable," the Guardian quoted one cabinet minister as having said.

For his part, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw again threatened military action if President Saddam does not disarm voluntarily.

"There are two preferences. One is to have a second security council resolution, which we want, though we have had to reserve our rights if we can't achieve that. The second preference is, if military action is required, that we have a substantive vote in the House of Commons before the action takes place, not afterwards," Straw told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Blair will not admit that Britain has fallen in line behind the U.S. in its official policy of regime change in Iraq. He warned Wednesday against any softening of international pressure on Iraq, as more British troops prepared to set off for possible action in the Gulf, AFP said.

"The single most dangerous thing we could now do at the moment, which in my view would increase the chance of conflict, would be to send out any signal of weakness," AFP quoted Blair as speaking to the House of Commons.

But Britain, unlike the Bush administration, does not want to be seen to infringe international law which upholds state sovereignty.

Blair told the House of Commons he would prefer any strike on Iraq to have the approval of the United Nations Security Council, in the form of a new resolution.
But he added that it was important to leave open the option of unilateral military action, in case any of the five permanent members of the Security Council exercised "an unreasonable veto."

Blair also faces vigorous skepticism among Britons as to whether a military showdown with Iraq is necessary or justified.   

The bishops of the Church of England - the biggest Christian denomination in Britain - Wednesday expressed their strongest criticism of Blair's policy on Iraq, AFP said.

The Church of England bishops issued a statement saying: "We do not believe that the evidence presented to date suggests a clear link exists between Iraq and al-Qaeda or that Iraq poses an immediate threat to international security.

"Without compelling new evidence to the contrary, we contend that military action could not be morally justified."

The Anglican bishops said it was crucial the work of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq -- who are due to report to the Security Council on January 27 -- should be allowed to run its course.