Abstract

Britain's Secret Sharers

The author claims British prime minister Tony Blair is in danger of being forced out of office by allegations that he lied to the British public in the run-up to the Iraq war. Barely a month ago Prime Minister Tony Blair looked unstoppable. He'd survived, narrowly, a revolt within his own party over plans to allow universities to charge higher tuition fees. The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly, the British weapons expert, completely cleared Blair of the charge that his government had "sexed up" the case for war on Iraq or had been at all at fault in its treatment of Dr. Kelly. Yet it is only a slight exaggeration to say that today Blair is one leak away from resignation. Blair's basic difficulty is that the British public, who were extremely reluctant to wage war on Iraq in the first place, now have good reason to believe they were lied to about both the nature of the Iraqi threat and the legality of sending British troops--fifty-nine of whom have died--into combat. The unanswered questions dogging the Prime Minister are: Did Downing Street put pressure on the Attorney General to rule that war against Iraq was legal without a second UN resolution--or even to reverse an earlier view that it was not?