LONDON, July 14: Two thirds of British voters feel Prime Minister Tony Blair misled them over the case for launching a war in Iraq, according to a poll in the Daily Mirror newspaper Monday.

Sixty-six percent of those questioned in the ICM Research poll said the prime minister had misled them — whether on purpose or not — over the reasons for going to war.

Twenty seven percent said they believed Blair knowingly misled the British people, while 39 percent said the Prime Minister had misled them, but not knowingly.

Over a third, 35 percent, said that their confidence in Blair had decreased as a result of his handling of the confrontation with Iraq.

However the poll also showed that dissatisfaction with Blair’s role in the Iraq war does not appear to have seriously dented his ruling Labour Party’s chances of winning the next general election.

Twenty-two percent of respondents said they would vote Labour against just 14 percent for the main opposition Conservative Party and eight percent for the Liberal Democrats.

However 30 percent did not disclose a voting intention and 19 percent said they wouldn’t bother to vote.

Britain’s next general election is due by mid-2006 at the latest.

Blair has seen his support among voters plummet in recent weeks as the government was accused of embellishing its case for war, and most recently his former cabinet member Clare Short urged him to step down.

One of Britain’s main arguments for war — the alleged threat posed by Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction — has been hard hit by the fact that three months past the war none has yet been found.

The BBC in late May reported that a British government dossier on Iraq in September was “sexed up” to help justify military action.

Against the wishes of intelligence chiefs, the government inserted the claim that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes, the BBC claimed.

Hans Blix, who was the UN weapons chief inspector in Iraq in the run-up to war, added to the criticism, telling The Independent on Sunday in an interview that the 45-minute claim was “a fundamental mistake”.

It was “highly unlikely that there were any means of delivering biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes”, he said.

For the poll, ICM research questioned 1,012 adults between July 10-12.—AFP