Iraq issue erupts as Britons set to vote

[cenacle]

Iraq issue erupts as Britons set to vote

Memos show Blair planned to participate in the war nearly a year before it began

By DOUG SAUNDERS

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... nal/Europe

Published Monday, May 2, 2005 by the UK Globe and Mail

LONDON -- Four days before Britons go to the polls, the Iraq war has suddenly appeared on the national election agenda after being all but absent from voter opinion for months.

The issue of Britain's role in the U.S.-led invasion has been rekindled by a series of memos and documents leaked to British newspapers, indicating that Prime Minister Tony Blair intended to participate almost a year before the assault took place in March, 2003.

British voters, who mostly supported the invasion at the time, have since told pollsters they deeply distrust him for his continued efforts to justify it. But until now, this feeling has failed to translate into a desire to throw Mr. Blair and his Labour Party out of office.

Four weeks ago, polls indicated only 3 per cent of voters considered Iraq an issue that would influence their ballot. Those results, combined with Britain's strong economy and dramatic improvements in public services during eight years of Labour rule, led most observers to predict a third Labour majority.

But the eleventh-hour revelations, even though their precise political meaning is often ambiguous, have led many to believe the election could become an open race.

In response, Mr. Blair seemed nervous and defensive yesterday.

Campaigning in Nottinghamshire, he said revelations about Iraq were being used to distract attention from his party's record in improving education and health services and reducing poverty.

Voters hoping to punish his party for the Iraq war could put those achievements in jeopardy, he warned.

"If people value the strong economy, investment in health and education, they have to come out and vote for it," Mr. Blair said. "It is not a question of sending a message to us. It is a question of not handing the keys of Downing Street [his official residence] to the Tories."

The Sunday Times newspaper yesterday published leaked cabinet minutes from July, 2002. They indicated Mr. Blair and his colleagues believed the United States was bent on invading Iraq and toppling dictator Saddam Hussein, and concluded that such action should be justified on moral rather than legal grounds.

"This record is extremely sensitive," the document begins. "No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents."

It continues: "Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action . . . . Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

It concludes that an invasion should be conducted and a political justification should follow: "If the political context were right, people would support regime change . . . . [the key issues are] whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan space to work."

Both the Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats yesterday accused Mr. Blair of antidemocratic behaviour. But the cabinet memo and similar leaks have been ambiguous enough for Mr. Blair to argue that he had cabinet and intelligence support for the war and thus did not lie about his position.

Despite the controversy, left-wing and conservative newspapers have endorsed Mr. Blair. Exceptions include the Times, which urged its readers to vote Tory for lower taxes, and the Independent, a paper singly devoted to the Iraq conflict, which endorsed the Liberal Democrats for their anti-Iraq stand.

Five polls published yesterday, all conducted before the documents were released, showed Labour winning by three to eight percentage points over the Tories.