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`Blair's Iraq policy a shambles'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON SEPT. 9. After the long summer break, normal politics has returned to Westminster, with a blistering attack on the Blair Government from all sides — MPs, trade unions and, most crucially, voters, more than 40 per cent of whom told an opinion poll at the weekend that they wanted the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to quit.

Even as Blair loyalists took heart from another poll, which showed faint signs of recovery for him and the Labour Party, there was no let-up in hostility from party backbenchers in the Commons at its first sitting after the recent setbacks in Iraq.

The Government's Iraq policy was described as a "shambles'' even by the pro-war Tories who joined angry Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs in taking on the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, after he announced plans to send additional British troops to Baghdad. He said 1,200 more soldiers were being sent as an "immediate requirement'' and indicated that a similar number might be needed over the coming months .

The announcement followed a stark warning by the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, that the Anglo-U.S. coalition faced a "strategic failure'' if urgent steps were not taken to improve the security environment in post-war Iraq.

Last week, Mr Blair admitted that situation was "serious'' but insisted that the coalition would not "waver'' and instead "redouble'' efforts to deal with it.

Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary who resigned from the Cabinet over the decision to invade Iraq, said the developments had confirmed doubts about the wisdom to go to war. "Those of us who had doubts as to whether it was wise to go into Iraq in the first place do not have those doubts removed by today's announcement,'' he said.

The Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, accused Ministers of being at "sixes and sevens'' over Iraq while the shadow defence secretary, Bernard Jenkins, said the Government had "bitten off more than they anticipated''.

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