British Opposition Leader Urges Blair to Answer Questions over Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 02, 2003

British Opposition Leader Urges Blair to Answer Questions over Iraq

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing another challenge from the opposition on Tuesday when Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, urged him to give evidence on his handling of intelligence on Iraq's alleged banned weapons before a parliamentary committee.

In an interview with the BBC radio, Kennedy continued to call for Blair to appear before the parliamentary committee, which is investigating whether Blair's government had exaggerated threat from Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction so as to make a stronger case for the US-led war against the country.

"The longer he refuses all requests to appear before a committee of the House of Commons, the greater the case for an independent judicial inquiry becomes," Kennedy said, stressing that he thought it was a mistake on Blair's part and it was destroying trust in Blair's office.

In the past weeks, Blair's office has been grappled with allegations that it had "sexed up" two dossiers on Iraq's banned weapons and two parliamentary committees are investigating whetherBlair misled the British public and parliament in the run-up to the US-led war in Iraq, which Britain joined.

Blair has refused to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, a cross-party select committee that meets in public andreports to the parliament. However, he promised to appear before the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is appointed by andreports to Blair.

Though Blair insisted that banned weapons would be found in Iraq, he has been under great pressure over the failure of the coalition forces to find the alleged weapons in Iraq, months afterthe United States announced that major military campaign in the country was over.

The latest opinion poll showed that the weapons row has damagedBlair's credibility and dented his popularity.

A poll published on Tuesday said Blair has lost the trust of nearly two-thirds of Britons.

The MORI poll for the British Financial Times newspaper, which interviewed 1,002 adults from June 20 to June 22 with an error margin of three percentage points, showed that 61 percent of thosesurveyed were unhappy with Blair and 51 percent thought Blair's policies would not improve the British economy in the long term.

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