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Blair under fire over justifying Iraq war

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Jan 13, IRNA
UK Blair-Military Intervention
Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under fierce criticism from members of all three of Britain's main parties, including his own, for continuing to try to justify the Iraq war.

"Blair is delusional," said former International Development Secretary Clare Short, who resigned from her cabinet post back in 2003 over the conduct of the Iraq war.

"His role has made the world much more dangerous, much more divided, diminished international law, diminished the prospects of the world co-operating in international humanitarian interventions," Short said.

In a valedictory speech on defence Friday, the British premier admitted that his foreign policy is "controversial" but insisted that his approach of military intervention must continue despite the ensuing debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Labour MP John McDonnell, who is to launch a challenge for the party's leadership when Blair steps down from power later this year, also described Blair's arguments as "delusional ramblings." The Prime Minister has used British military forces to allow him to "strut the world stage" and made the "most catastrophic foreign policy mistakes since Suez by taking us into Iraq and Afghanistan," McDonnell was quoted saying by London's Evening Standard newspaper.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said that Blair showed that he did not seem to have learned the lessons of the Iraq war.

"Without United Nations authority the military action was illegal and severely damaged Britain's reputation. This will be the Prime Minister's legacy," Campbell said.

The main opposition Conservatives, which still support the Iraq war, also criticized Blair's delayed pledge to provide extra funding and resources for Britain's overstretched armed forces.

According to the Standard, the Tories said Blair was able to claim defence spending had remained constant only once contingency funds provided for Iraq and Afghanistan were taken into account.

Without them, it had fallen to 2.2 per cent of national income, from 2.5 per cent six years ago. Almost 2,000 troops, one aircraft carrier, four destroyers, six frigates and 13 RAF squadrons had been lost since 1997, they said.

Earlier former assistant chief of defence staff, Lord Garden, warned that Britain could simply not afford to be a "mini-America" intervening around the world as Blair wanted.

Speaking on BBC radio, he also accused the prime minister of trying to shackle his designated successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, to his controversial military policies.

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