Blair left isolated over Saddam

13 April 2012

Tony Blair was left isolated on Iraq after Mr Brown joined the growing condemnation of Saddam Hussein's execution.

The Prime Minister's steadfast refusal to comment on the way in which the Iraqi dictator met his end was looking increasingly untenable after the Chancellor described the hanging as 'deplorable'.

Read more... • Saddam's hanging 'deplorable' says Brown

Downing Street hurried out a statement echoing Mr Brown's verdict, but was unable to say when Mr Blair was likely to answer calls for a public declaration of his views.

With MPs returning from the Christmas break today, the PM will be unable to duck the questions for much longer.

Footage of Shia Muslim witnesses taunting Saddam, a Sunni, as he mounted the gallows led to worldwide condemnation and highlightedthe sectarian divisions dividing the country.

Mr Blair is expected to call one of his monthly press conferences within days, and will face the Commons for Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. Pressure on him intensified further as Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Trade Minister Margaret Hodge joined the criticisms.

But it was Mr Brown's unequivocal assessment of the events in Baghdad more than a week ago which shed an uncomfortable spotlight on Mr Blair.

In his BBC interview, he said he would not 'shirk' his responsibility as a member of the Government that went to war, but also indicatedhe would press for troop withdrawals this year.

And he made plain that he would stand up to the Bush White House, saying he would speak 'frankly' to the President who has been accused of using Mr Blair as a 'poodle'.

Mr Brown said: 'Now that we know the full picture of what happened, we can sum this up as a deplorable set of events.

'Even those people, unlike me, who are in favour of capital punishment found this completely unacceptable and I am pleased that there is now an inquiry into this and I hope lessons in this area will be learnt, as we learn other lessons about what has happened in Iraq.'

A Downing Street statement said: 'In terms of what Mr Blair will say next week, we don't think there are going to be any surprises on where he stands. He supports the inquiry by the Iraqi authorities.

'He does believe that the manner of execution was completely wrong, but this shouldn't lead us to forget the crimes that Saddam committed, including the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.'

Mr Brown stressed that two lessons had to be learned from the mistakes of the war: the transition to Iraqi control took too long, and not enough has been done to win support in the Islamic world.

He added: 'I am pleased that our armed forces are playing a part in that, so that we can over the next few months start to scale down our troops' presence in Iraq.

'I believe it is true to say that by the end of the year, there may be thousands less in Iraq than there are now.'

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in