posted 07-15-2003 08:46 AM            

By Toby Helm, Chief Political Correspondent, and George Jones
(Filed: 15/07/2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/
07/15/nleft15.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/07/15/ixhome.html

Tony Blair's plans for a new world order in which advanced nations would take armed action to remove brutal or failed regimes were blocked yesterday by fellow centre-Left leaders.

Tony Blair argued that world leaders could not 'walk by on the other side'

Mr Blair had argued that world leaders could not "walk by on the other side" if people were being brutally downtrodden.

At a conference attended by 14 Social Democrat heads of state or government at Bagshot, Surrey, several leaders refused to sign up to a far-reaching statement paving the way for military action to protect the world from repressive governments.

Brazil and Argentina were said to have led protests from those who believed the declaration would have altered agreements on international sovereignty. Others feared it appeared to be a retrospective justification for the war on Iraq.

German officials denied reports that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who strongly opposed the Iraq war, had also held out against the wording. But it is understood that he had strong reservations and acted to prevent anything that would be seen to have approved of the decision to go to war.

Early drafts of the communiqué, quoting from a report by the Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, launched by the Canadian government in 2000, stated: "Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect."

That wording did not appear in the final version. As a compromise, the conclusions agreed merely that the work being done by ICISS was a valuable contribution to a debate within the United Nations about how to deal with brutal regimes.

Amid signs of embarrassment in government circles, Downing Street said that although the section had been removed, the substance and meaning of the conclusions remained the same.

Mr Blair used a press conference at the end of the meeting to vent his frustration regarding the growing controversy over whether the Government exaggerated the threat from Iraq in the run up to the war.

He said Britain should be "proud" of its role in ousting Saddam Hussein. Over the past few days the first steps had been taken for Iraqi people to take control of their lives, while the UN had uncovered mass graves thought to contain 300,000 victims.

"I have no doubt at all that in the future, whatever the differences have been in the past, we can reconstruct Iraq as a stable and prosperous country and the world will be a more secure place as a result," he said.

Earlier, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said the Government stood by a claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore for its nuclear programme from the west African state of Niger. The Government has been under pressure since the International Atomic Energy Agency disclosed that documents which it received relating to the allegation were crude forgeries.

Last week, the White House said that a reference to the claim - which was passed to the Americans by MI6 - should not have been included in the president's State of the Union address.

However, Mr Straw said that Britain had not been able to reveal the source of the intelligence to America as it had been passed from a third, unnamed intelligence service. The IAEA said yesterday that it believed Britain's evidence was also based on forgeries.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, last night wrote to Mr Blair urging him to instigate an independent inquiry.

posted 07-15-2003 09:18 AM            

ALISON HARDIE POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=765272003

TONY Blair’s personal credibility was called into question yesterday as a member of his Cabinet admitted the Prime Minister had "a particular problem" persuading the public to trust him.

Allies of Gordon Brown were talking openly about the make-up of the government and strategy when the Chancellor takes over, amid a growing sense of crisis surrounding the Blair administration.

Mr Blair, who is due to fly to Washington on Thursday on the first leg of a round-the-world diplomatic mission, also faced heightened pressure over the justification for war in Iraq.

Hans Blix, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, questioned Mr Blair’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be fired within 45 minutes. Mr Blix described the allegation as "highly unlikely" and added: "I think that was a fundamental mistake. I don’t know exactly how they calculated this figure of 45 minutes in the dossier of September last year. That seems pretty far off the mark to me".

Mr Blix talked to the Prime Minister several times in the run-up to war and said Mr Blair was "strongly convinced" of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Blair yesterday offered a bullish defence of his policy. He said: "Nobody was in any doubt of the threat posed by Saddam. ... When we see the Iraqi people making at last the first tentative steps towards self-government, and when the United Nations’ representative is already talking about 300,000 people in mass graves, then I hope that at least one thing that we can all agree on - the world is more secure, Iraq is a better place and will be a better place with Saddam Hussein out of power."

Mr Blair’s official visit to the United States could be overshadowed by the unprecedented fall-out between the CIA and MI6. The US intelligence agency has criticised the British secret service for supplying now- discredited information that Saddam had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger.

Downing Street played down the significance of the rift and said the government continued to stand by its dossier containing the 45-minute claim. A spokesman added that British intelligence on uranium was based on reports from Italy and that it was not in a position to give further details.

However, Robin Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war, said: "It is time the government came clean and published the extra evidence they claim proves there was a uranium deal. If it was not good enough to be in the president’s address, it was not good enough to go in the Prime Minister’s dossier."

Peter Hain, now in Mr Cook’s old job as leader of the house, was one of a string of ministers who appeared on television yesterday in a bid to shore up Mr Blair’s position.

But the Leader of the House, who last month caused a major headache for Labour when he suggested the rich should pay more tax, made another gaffe, saying Mr Blair had "a particular problem" with trust.

Speaking on GMTV, he said: "For our government, and for Tony Blair specifically, as the head in this context, [trust] is a particular problem that we are suffering at the moment."

Mr Blair was defended by Peter Mandelson, the former minister, and Patricia Hewitt and Alistair Darling, both Cabinet members, but Clare Short, the former international development secretary who quit over the aftermath of the war, said he should stand down before things get "nastier". She added: "There is lots and lots of muttering going on because the trade unions are very unhappy, that partner of ours, and, of course, the degree of trust in the country has gone down remarkably."

Ms Short insisted she was not acting on behalf of anyone else, but said: "Obviously there’s Gordon Brown sitting there - and everybody knows he’s there - and he’s a big figure."

William Hill, the bookmakers, cut the odds on Mr Blair quitting by the end of the year from 20/1 to 6/1.