Short calls on ‘deceitful’ Blair to quit

FORMER British Labour minister Clare Short yesterday stepped up her calls on Tony Blair to quit saying he had behaved worse than shamed John Profumo.

The former International Development Secretary predicted the Prime Minister would not lead Labour into the next election and called on him to stand down for the honour of the country.

She said he had deceived the country over war in Iraq and pointed to looming problems over university top-up fees.

She said Mr Profumo (Secretary of State for War 1960-3) may have lied to the Commons about having an affair with a prostitute but Mr Blair had been deceitful over a war.

Ms Short, who belatedly quit the cCabinet over the war in Iraq, said the intelligence agencies knew Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction the premise for the war.

She had "enormous regrets" about the Prime Minister's mishandling of the situation. She said Britain should have been a friend to the US, but not an "unconditional lackey."

Going to war without the second UN resolution had been a disaster, she said. Ms Short said she had not ruled out the use of force, but it had to have UN backing.

She said there were other ways to get rid of Saddam.

"We could have done it right. But I think what Tony did was promise Bush he would be with him come what may, promise us a second resolution, therefore all the deceit and all the disgruntlement in the UK and the failure to prepare for afterwards which is a complete disaster for the Middle East, for Iraq, for the world."

Ms Short told Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton that the intelligence agencies did not believe Saddam had nuclear weapons, but thought he was determined to have programmes.

"No one thought there was some imminent danger. That was all talked up and talked up to a point of deceit.

"I think he (Mr Blair) thought it was an honourable thing to do and he thought it was important to stick with the US and not let them be alone. If he had to tell a few lies on the way it was for a good cause. I think he thought it was honourable.

"Profumo lied about having an affair with a prostitute and had to resign. If you are going to start getting into deceit when you are going to war and risking human life it has gone too far."

Ms Short said Saddam should have been indicted as a war criminal. But she said she did not want to see him executed for his crimes.

"Given what Saddam Hussein has done, all the monstrous evil and killing and torture, killing him in recompense, much better to have this shambling pathetic old man that we found in a hole in a ground in a prison for the rest of his life and the world has some sort of dignity about the way it deals with him rather than descending to the same sort of brutalism."

In another development the Prime Minister was told he has risked backbench rebellions by making loyal MPs feel like "pillocks" over the Iraq war.

Labour left-winger Diane Abbott said MPs were stung after being taken in by the Prime Minister's claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons.

She said they were now far more willing to revolt over "a swathe of issues" such as university top-up fees.