Blair Tries To Put Best Face On Iraq Meltdown

by Sanjay Suri

(IPS) LONDON -- For a leader riding a whirlwind of public disfavor, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is making a show of exuding confidence.

With polls showing support for military intervention in Iraq declining from already low levels, Blair's government was talking to the United States Monday about committing more troops to Iraq.

That offer comes in the wake of a spurt of violence in the south of Iraq controlled by British troops. More than 70 Iraqis were reported killed in car bomb attacks in the southern city last week.

And it follows political pressure from critics that Britain should reconsider its position after the decision by new Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero to withdraw about 1,300 troops. Britain has about 8,000 troops in Iraq., the third largest contingent, after the private army of mercenaries in-country, estimated at 15,000.

But some chinks are beginning to show in Blair's brave front. He has gone along with the U.S. position that coalition forces will continue to have effective presence after the proposed handover of administration to local government on June 30.

Increasingly, however, Blair has begun to speak of the need for UN involvement in Iraq from later this year. But it is not certain how far the UN will now be willing to come in and clean up the coalition mess - with the coalition military still in effective control.

Blair's meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ahead of his meeting with President Bush earlier this month was a strong non-verbal message to the United States that Britain would like to see an increasing role for the UN in Iraq.

Blair's government is evidently keen on working out an exit policy from Iraq. That may well have to come by way of an exit for Blair. General elections are due in 2006 but could be held next year. A Guardian/ICM poll last week showed that support for the war has slumped from 53 percent in January to 41 percent. The percentage of people prepared to argue against war and to say the invasion was unjustified has risen from 41 percent to 48 percent. That still implies majority support for British forces in Iraq, but just about.

No such poll is the last word, however. A survey conducted by the Daily Express newspaper indicated that 93 percent of the British think Blair is no longer fit to run Britain.

The newspaper switched to back Conservative leader Michael Howard. But since Howard supports the government policies on Iraq, it is not clear how much of that rejection of Blair was due to his Iraq policy.

On Monday, 52 former British ambassadors posted in areas from Baghdad to Tel Aviv wrote to Blair to condemn his backing for the "doomed" U.S. Middle East policy.

Blair has had a lot of such attacks to weather in recent days. Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, the most important functionary of the Church of England, said that Britain's "political health" had been damaged by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy wrote a damning article in The Observer newspaper. "The gravest error is the continuing insistence that Iraq is the front line in an uncompromising 'war' against terrorism," he wrote.

"The Prime Minister lumps together all the elements of resistance and calls them 'fanatics and terrorists', while praising moderate members of the Iraqi Governing Council. But if members of the IGC are resigning in protest at the way the occupation is being handled they must be sensing a shift in the public mood."

Kennedy added: "Not everyone who opposes the coalition is a terrorist. If Iraq is a haven for Islamic terrorists it is because of the invasion; there was no proven link with al-Qaeda before. We cannot expect Iraqi society to quietly wait for democracy to be delivered according to the coalition's timetable. We should not confuse nationalism with Islamic terrorism. The perpetrators of the Madrid bombs are not the same as nationalists in Iraq, as the Prime Minister seems to believe."

In a debate in the House of Commons last week the most senior Labour MP Tam Dalyell challenged Blair's policies strongly.

"Isn't the unpalatable truth that an occupying force is seen more and more as an inspiration, far from curtailing, actually inspires violence?" Dalyell said. "Haven't we reached a situation where many Iraqis have come to regard this as a war of liberation? There are some of us who think Mr. Zapatero is right and, embarrassing and losing face though it may be, that the coalition forces should be withdrawn."

But Blair is soldiering on in the face of these political attacks. The heat was taken off the Iraq debate for the better part of last week after he declared that a referendum would be held in Britain on adopting the EU constitution.

The announcement marked a major policy U-turn, and questions about Britain's position in Europe took natural precedence over Iraq.

But Blair is more than sidestepping. He took his critics head on in the parliamentary debate. Despite what they and several independent reports say, Blair set out his vision of how he sees the violence in Fallujah and Najaf.

"It is absolutely clear what is going on there," he said.

"All those who think they will lose out when Iraq becomes democratic -- former Saddam supporters, foreign terrorists, militias led by extremist clerics -- have a vested interest in seeking to delay or disrupt the transition towards democracy," Blair said.

"They portray themselves as opponents of American occupation. In fact, they are opponents of allowing the Iraqi people the chance to choose their own leaders in free and fair elections. It is essential that the forces of reaction and terror do not prevail."

Blair also held out the 'good news' on Iraq.

"Some 2,300 schools have been rehabilitated; $32 billion has been pledged for reconstruction; electricity generation is now above pre- conflict levels; higher oil production over the past four months has given Iraq $2 billion more in revenues than we expected even last November; and Iraqis are enjoying the benefits of a new Iraqi currency worth 40 percent more than the discredited Saddam dinar."