A Senior Aide to Blair Says She May Quit
By ALAN COWELL
ONDON, March 9 — Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington's most steadfast comrade in arms, confronted widening dissent among his Labor Party followers today as a senior member of his government said she would resign if Britain joined in a war against Iraq without United Nations authorization.
Meanwhile, a ministerial aide quit to protest the government's readiness to go to war in Iraq and a Labor insider warned a revolt among legislators could broaden.
Clare Short, the international development secretary, told the BBC, "I will not uphold a breach of international law or this undermining of the U.N. and I will resign from this government."
She called Mr. Blair's position on Iraq "extraordinarily reckless" for the United Nations and also his own political future.
While there was no immediate public comment from Mr. Blair, Ms. Short's remarks indicated the divisions within the prime minister's ranks as he seeks international support for a new United Nations resolution sanctifying the use of force against Saddam Hussein.
The resignation today of Andrew Reed, a Labor legislator with the title of parliamentary private secretary in the Environment Ministry, was the first departure of its kind among several Labor figures in the government. Anne Campbell, who holds a similar position in the Trade and Industry Ministry, is among four other junior officials contemplating a similar protest, according to her boss, Patricia Hewitt.
After a parliamentary revolt by 122 Labor lawmakers last month, when they supported a motion stating that the case for military action was "as yet unproven," Doug Henderson, a former armed forces minister, said the number of Labor dissidents could swell to "upward of 150."
Britain has earmarked some 40,000 troops to join the 200,000-plus American soldiers poised to invade Iraq, making it the only significant non-American contributor of forces to President Bush's "coalition of the willing." But Mr. Blair's unswerving support for the Bush administration's invasion plans — with or without a second resolution — has turned into by far his riskiest political gamble since taking office in 1997.
Only 15 percent of Britons favor war without a second resolution, according to the latest opinion survey today, leaving Mr. Blair's fortunes in part hostage to the outcome of a military campaign whose consequences cannot be forecast. While he does not require Parliament's approval to join hostilities, Mr. Blair could well be risking his political future by seeming to flout international opinion.
"My instinct is that this is one of the most critical periods I can remember in the Labor Party," Mr. Henderson said in a television interview.
Mr. Blair was reported to have spent the weekend working the telephones to raise support for a new United Nations resolution giving Iraq until March 17 to disarm. France and Russia, both of which have veto power in the Security Council, oppose the resolution, along with Germany and others.
Mr. Blair's loyalists rallied in support today, seeking to convince the nation that a new resolution was still possible. "We are proceeding through international law to deal with Saddam," said Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. "We are working very hard to get agreement for the second resolution." |
