Saddam, Libya Announcements Boost Blair
By BETH GARDINER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) -- In less than a week, Prime Minister Tony Blair has had two big moments in the international spotlight, going public first with important good news for him and close ally President Bush.
On Sunday, Blair appeared before cameras ahead of Bush and America's top official in Iraq to announce the capture of Saddam Hussein. On Friday, he was first to disclose Libya's decision to cease its development of weapons of mass destruction.
For Blair, who has been severely criticized at home for his close ties to Bush, breaking such positive stories has provided a long-awaited chance to show Britons his foreign policy is getting results.
It must have been a welcome break from months of answering critics' questions about the U.S.-led coalition's failure to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, an issue that has dogged the prime minister since Saddam's regime fell.
Blair publicly confirmed the former Iraqi leader's capture more than 45 minutes before L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, held a news conference in Baghdad and hours before Bush spoke to the American people.
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On Friday, he stepped before cameras in Durham, northern England, to reveal Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's surprise decision some 15 minutes before Bush spoke publicly in Washington. The leaders said Gadhafi admitted Libya had worked on weapons of mass destruction but now promised to stop doing so.
"This decision by Col. Gadhafi is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Blair said. "It will make the region and the world more secure."
Television audiences likely were small when the news came late Friday night.
But allowing Blair to briefly take center stage may nonetheless have been an effort by Washington to boost the prime minister, whom the Bush administration knows has suffered politically for his unstinting support of the president.
It also may have been a recognition of Britain's support in recent years for greater engagement with Libya, long an international outcast accused of supporting terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988 - 15 years ago Sunday. That bombing killed 270 people.
"This is a major victory in the war against terror and a personal triumph for Tony Blair and for British diplomacy," said George Foulkes, a lawmaker from Blair's Labor Party. "I hope those who have been all too ready to criticize him in the past will now be big enough to come out and publicly acknowledge this success."
Until Friday, the United States treated Libya as a kind of junior member of Bush's "axis of evil" comprising Iran, North Korea and prewar Iraq.
Britain, by contrast, resumed diplomatic relations with the north African nation on July 7, 1999 - 15 years after cutting ties when London police constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by gunfire from the Libyan "People's Bureau," as its London embassy was called.
Relations warmed further this year, when Tripoli accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and Britain introduced a successful U.N. resolution lifting sanctions imposed in 1992.
In October, Britain even hosted one of the Libyan leader's sons, Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, at an energy meeting and a Foreign Office news conference.
Britain, along with Germany and France, has used a similar, pro-engagement stance in relations with Iran, where America also has held a harder line.
However, Blair's political fortunes are likely to be determined by issues closer to home. Pollsters say the government's handling of the economy and its performance on public services are far more important to voters than events overseas. |
