Blair survives attack on war

British Prime Minister Tony Blair survived a blistering attack Tuesday on his government’s handling of the war in Iraq, narrowly defeating moves to open a parliamentary inquiry into a conflict one former ally called “a huge blunder.”

In a gauge of how far British public opinion has swung toward opposition to the war, Blair’s majority Labor Party could muster only a 25-vote margin to defeat the measure. The inquiry would have explored suspicions over evidence used to justify the war and growing suspicions that the conflict has swirled dangerously out of control.

“We were wrong to go to war in Iraq, and we cannot wash our hands of the harm that we’ve done in doing so,” said Labor lawmaker Gavin Strang, a former Blair ally.

“Because of his tragic misjudgment, our prime minister is more steeped in blood than any Scottish politician since Macbeth,” said Peter Tapsell, the longest-serving Conservative in the House of Commons. “We need an inquiry to tell us how he led us into this disaster, and to make sure that no vainglorious and ignorant prime minister can ever do so again.”

But government ministers warned that launching an inquiry now would send a message of weakness to Britain’s adversaries, threaten the morale of the troops and undermine support for Iraqi attempts to build a unified and democratic nation.

“Our words in the House today will be heard a very long way away. They can be heard by our troops who are already in great danger ... and by the Iraqi people, whose bravery and fortitude is humbling, and who need our support,” Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the House of Commons.

“I have no doubt that there will come a time when we will want to look at the lessons learned from our experience in Iraq.... But now, I repeat, is not that time,” she said.

Britain has 7,200 soldiers deployed in Iraq, mainly in the south near Basra, and has seen 120 soldiers die in the conflict. Another 5,600 British troops are posted in Afghanistan and facing increasingly fierce resistance from Taliban fighters there.

Tuesday’s vote in the House of Commons came amid eroding British support for the war, with even a senior British military commander recently expressing doubts about the wisdom of keeping large numbers of troops deployed in Iraq much longer.

The new head of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt, told the Daily Mail last month that troops should leave Iraq “soon” because “our presence exacerbates the security problems” in some parts of the country.

In a Guardian/ICM poll published Thursday, 61% of respondents said they wanted British forces to leave Iraq this year, even if they have not completed their mission, and even if the U.S. wants them to stay.

A day earlier, Beckett was asked on BBC Radio 4 whether historians may judge that Iraq had been a foreign policy disaster for Britain. Opposition lawmakers hauled out her answer during Tuesday’s debate: “Yes, they may,” she said. “Then again, they may not.”

The debate was launched by nationalist parties from Scotland and Wales, where elections scheduled next spring threaten Labor deputies and were probably a factor in the defection of a number of Labor lawmakers in the final vote of 298 to 273. The margin was substantially short of Labor’s 67-vote majority.

Blair’s support for the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq has been the biggest factor in a political nose-dive that prompted a recent move within the Labor ranks to force him to pledge his resignation by the end of next summer.

“On the political tombstone of the prime minister will be one word,” Charles Kennedy, former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, told the House of Commons. “Iraq.”

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kim.murphy@latimes.com