LONDON, September 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – British Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterated Sunday, September 25, full support for the controversial shoot-to-kill policy against terror suspects, and admitted that the Iraqi resistance has been more ferocious than he had expected.

"I don't think anyone ever came along and formally asked for the consent to the policy of the" Metropolitan Police, Blair said on the BBC television before the annual conference of his Labour Party.

"But if they had I would have said it's absolutely the right policy," he said.

The policy has triggered a heated controversy in Britain especially after anti-terrorist police killed Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22.

The 27-year-old electrician was shot eight times at point blank range by police officers at a London Underground subway station on terror suspicion.

"The police are facing incredibly difficult situations; in these circumstances they have got to take the measures that they're taking," Blair said.

Blair also admitted that the Iraqi resistance has been more ferocious than he had expected.

"I didn't expect quite the same sort of ferocity from every single element in the Middle East that came in and was doing their best to disrupt the political process," Blair said.

A recent study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) concluded that the number of foreign fighters in Iraq was highly exaggerated and was just one element of the violence there.

"Analysts and government officials in the US and Iraq have overstated the size of the foreign element in the Iraqi insurgency," it said, putting their number at less than 10 percent.

Blair, nonetheless, defended his decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq.

"There is no doubt in my mind at all that what is happening in Iraq now is crucial for the future of our own security, never mind the security of Iraq or the greater Middle East".

Four Church of England bishops offered Monday, September 19, that the Church takes the lead in reconciling with British Muslims by apologizing to their leaders for the US-led war in Iraq if the British government fails to do so.

Despite mounting public opposition, Blair said British troops would stay in Iraq until completing what he termed "the nation-building mission".

"Our mandate there from the UN is to stay there for as long as the Iraqi government want us and as long as it takes to build up the capability of the Iraqi forces," he said.

"What we do depends on the job being done. There is no arbitrary date that's being set and the allies are all in exactly the same position."

A report by The Observer said that a blueprint to be presented next month to the Iraqi parliament will "lay out a point-by-point 'road map' for military disengagement by multinational forces," with the first steps possibly going into effect soon after the December polls in Iraq.

The daily added that Britain has already "privately" informed Japan of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May next, a move that would make it impossible for some 500 Japanese troops in the sector to remain.

Tens of thousands of Britons took to the streets of London on Saturday, September 24, to demand the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.