Blair under fire for dodging Iraq debate

Sam Knight

Tony Blair faced criticism from the Opposition and his own backbenches today after deciding to skip a rare parliamentary debate about his strategy in Iraq and the future of the Middle East.

Instead of attending the first debate on Iraq and the wider region on the Government’s time in more than three years, the Prime Minister will give a short address to the Confederation of British Industry, at a conference only ten minutes from Westminster.

This morning William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “He was in the House to lead us to war. He should now be in the House to reassure Parliament and the country that the Government understands the gravity of situation in Iraq and has a clear strategy for making Iraq safe and stable.”

A spokeswoman for the Conservatives said that David Cameron was expected to be in the House for the debate. Ironically enough, the Tory leader was criticised in December for skipping the annual conference of the CBI to make a trip to Iraq.

Mr Blair’s place will be taken by Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, and Downing Street said today that it was his custom not to attend what are known as “adjournment debates” in which no substantive motion is put before the Commons.

Nonetheless, the debate comes at a critical time, with British troops preparing to hand over Basra, the last main province under UK control to Iraqi authorities, and in the days after President George Bush decided to send an extra 21,500 American soldiers to try and halt the endemic sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Since the US President announced the so-called “surge” of forces to restore order to the Iraqi capital and the western province of Anbar, the White House has also launched a parallel diplomatic effort, despatching the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to organise a meeting between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders in the coming weeks.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, used the occasion of today’s debate to make his party the first to demand a timetable of withdrawal for British troops. Sir Menzies said UK forces should begin pulling out of Iraq in May and the last should leave by the end of October.

“We should conduct a staged withdrawal of British forces,” he told the BBC today. “There are risks, but there are risks involved in staying, and even President Bush has said there can’t be anything approaching an open-ended commitment. And at the moment, that is what we have.”

Mr Blair and the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, have repeatedly stated that there will be a substantial withdrawal of British forces from Iraq this year but have not tied themselves to a specific deadline, saying that the UK will provide military assistance to the Iraqi Government for as long as it is needed.

The Prime Minister dismissed Sir Menzies’ plan as “deeply irresponsible” today. Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions, just before the Middle East debate was due to start, Mr Blair said the setting of a withdrawal date would “send the most disastrous signal to the people we are fighting in Iraq”.

He also shrugged off Sir Menzies’s objections to his missing the debate: “I’m actually debating the issue with you now,” said Mr Blair, adding that he intended to address the Commons when British forces complete Operation Sinbad, the mission to secure and hand over Basra.

But it was not enough to satisfy some on the Labour backbenches. Mr Blair was chided by John McDonnell, the left wing Labour MP and challenger to Gordon Brown, who said the Prime Minister’s decision not to debate Iraq this afternoon was “a shocking negation of his responsibilities.”

Andrew Murray, chairman of the Stop The War Coalition, which is organising a protest in Westminster to coincide with the debate, also expressed his incredulity. “This is an extraordinary sense of priority. The Prime Minister should be in the Commons to explain his disastrous Middle East policy to MPs rather than discussing job cuts with employers.”