LONDON, March 20: British Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused by his Labour party dissidents that he is sucking British troops into another Vietnam war.

The biggest voice of dissent came from a former defence minister, Peter Kilfoyle, who warned that in the Afghan military campaign there were dangerous unanswered questions.

He urged Blair to match the stand taken by an earlier Labour prime minister, saying “the precedent for the situation we find ourselves in is Vietnam — and Harold Wilson, under great American pressure, kept us out.”

But Downing Street rejected Kilfoyle’s remarks, and the prime minister’s spokesman said the dispatch of 1,700 commandos to Afghanistan to fight alongside US troops is part of an “evolving” campaign.

The opposition Conservative Party is also taking the matter quite seriously and its leader Iain Duncan Smith is pressing for Thursday’s planned debate to be set aside to allow MPs a full discussion on the Afghan military plans and the risks involved.

If granted by the Speaker, it would be the first such event in nine years of British parliamentary history.