Blair shoulder to shoulder with bush for 'just war'

When President George Bush declared war on terrorism, Tony Blair did not hesitate to position Britain ‘‘shoulder to shoulder’’ with the United States but the grave implications were not lost on him.

Mr Blair knew that the effort to restrain what he called the new phenomenon of international mass terrorism was likely to involve a high risk deployment of British forces in a hostile and forbidding arena.

Perhaps more worrying was the prospect that the onslaught could provoke a fresh wave of terror attacks against the Western coalition, which Mr Blair’s breathless shuttle diplomacy did so much to form.

Terrible as the strikes against the World Trade Centre and Pentagon were, the terrorists would have no qualms about slaughtering even larger numbers of civilians if given the chance, Mr Blair warned.

‘‘The limits on the numbers they kill and their methods of killing are not governed by morality. The limits are only practical or technical,’’ he told MPs after calling an emergency session of Parliament on September 11.

‘‘We know that they would, if they could, go further and use chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction.’’

This was not, of course, the first time that Mr Blair had faced the responsibility of despatching Britain’s military personnel into a danger zone, knowing that some may never return.

Just several weeks ago, the start of Nato’s weapons collection mission in Macedonia was overshadowed by the killing of 22-year-old sapper Ian Collins, who died after youths hurled a lump of concrete at the armoured Land Rover he was travelling in.

Others to have lain down their lives included SAS member Brad Tinnion, killed last year during a daring mission to rescue six British troops held hostage in the troubled West African state of Sierra Leone.

The most dramatic deployments authorised by Mr Blair were Britain’s involvement in Operation Desert Fox, the attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq which started in December 1998, and the 1999 operation in Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic.

Desert Fox saw RAF bombing raids follow US cruise missile strikes as the allies sought to end Saddam’s defiance of UN weapons inspectors trying to block his efforts to build arms of mass destruction.

In the spring of the following year, Mr Blair was one of the prime movers on the world stage for the war against Milosevic to halt the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo.

The 79-day Nato bombardment of Yugoslavia forced the Yugoslav army to withdraw and allowed Kosovar Albanian refugees to return to the province, which effectively became a UN protectorate.

Though the risks involved in the new war on terror must have caused him sleepless nights, Mr Blair - who has often cited his Christian faith as a guiding light in his life - clearly has no religious misgivings.

As he insisted that defeating the terrorist threat was ‘‘the right and the just thing to do’’, Mr Blair may well have reflected on the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, who developed the concept of a ‘‘just war’’ back in the 13th century.

The theologian defined a just war as one fought for a just cause, by a legally recognised authority, with a reasonable chance of success, and as a last resort after all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted.

The action also had to be proportionate, using only sufficient force, and avoiding civilian casualties as far as possible.

Mr Blair would no doubt argue the action now under way falls firmly within those parameters, but that will not ease his burden.

Those close to Mr Blair say responsibility has hung heavy on his shoulders during previous crises. Some thought he aged visibly.

His resolute support for the US now has placed Britain’s armed services and civilians in frontline of the war on terror.

They face a fanatical and elusive enemy capable of striking anywhere in the world.

The Prime Minister must be braced for the next terrorist atrocity in the extended and messy struggle likely to come.

Mr Blair has taken these steps not only in pursuit of justice for those who died in America, but also because he fears that if those who killed more than 5,000 people in a matter of hours are not stopped, they could wreak even greater carnage yet.