January 10, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 6, 1423

LONDON: Britain’s ruling Labour government is facing a hardening mood among its own parliamentary party against an attack on Iraq with predictions that up to 100 members of parliament (MPs) are preparing to rebel and junior ministers could resign if war starts without UN backing.

Labour’s chief whip, Hilary Armstrong, has passed on to Tony Blair growing demands for evidence of any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and a new UN mandate to justify any attack. MPs are warning that the last time Britain went to war divided — over Suez in 1956 — it ended with disaster and the then British premier Anthony Eden’s fall from power.

“The mood has hardened over Christmas. Labour MPs don’t trust George Bush and wonder why Tony is so close to him. And the weapons inspectors haven’t found anything. With a new UN resolution it [war] is manageable, but if Tony wants to do anything without UN support there will be serious mega-trouble,” one influential moderate said on Wednesday.

The fears of Labour MPs and activists appear to be matched by doubts among the wider public, prompting Mr Blair and Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, to stress that war is not inevitable.

Both Mr Blair’s office at No 10 Downing Street, London, and the UK Foreign Office on Wednesday briefed that the weapons inspection team must have “time and space” to search for proof — or lack of it — that Saddam Hussein is concealing weapons of mass destruction, and that January 27 is not a deadline, merely a reporting date for the team’s chief, Hans Blix.

That points towards an open-ended inspection rather than the spring military campaign, ahead of the sweltering Iraqi summer, mooted by US military and civilian chiefs.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London, now making initial deployments in the Gulf, is not thought to be keen on conflict, but eager for clarity. Mr Straw and aides to the UK defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, denied a split on the issue on Wednesday, though there is anecdotal evidence that Mr Hoon is resigned to a short war, possibly as soon as February.

The veteran Labour backbencher, Tam Dalyell, failed to win an emergency debate from the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin, on Wednesday despite arguing that British forces are entitled to proof of the “settled overwhelming conviction of their fellow countrymen that the cause is just”. But 150 MPs stayed behind to hear his plea.

At prime minister’s question time in the House of Commons, Mr Blair sidestepped a crucial challenge posed by the leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrat MPs Charles Kennedy: would Britain be “involved” in a US attack if the UN’s team found no evidence of WMD, as it has failed to do so far since arriving in Baghdad in November?

As Mr Blair refused to be pinned down, Mr Kennedy pressed him: “Under what circumstances would the US take military action against Iraq in which our country would not choose to support them?”

Mr Blair insisted yet again that President Saddam must either disarm, as the UN has demanded, or be disarmed — “the choice is Saddam’s” — and claimed Mr Kennedy’s backing to “support us in the action we have to take” if UN resolution 1441 is defied.

Though Mr Kennedy leads the Liberal Democrats, his question touched the heart of Labour concerns which were later conveyed to Mr Blair by leaders of the parliamentary Labour party.

There has been a widespread belief, since the Washington Post reported in mid-December that a decision on war would follow hard on the heels of Mr Blix’s January 27 report to the security council, that war would start by February.

Mr Blix was due to give an interim report to the security council on Thursday, updating details of sites inspected so far. His full report on January 27 is expected to be along the same lines, rather than an assessment that could provide the trigger for war.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.