- LONDON (Reuters) - British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, bidding to calm growing public alarm at the
prospect, has begun preparing the nation for war with Iraq in his most
uncompromising speech to date on the subject.
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- "I hate war. Every sensible person does. But sometimes
it is the right thing to do," he told reporters at his Sedgefield
constituency in northern England, promising convincing evidence soon that
Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
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- "Iraq poses a real and unique threat to the security
of the region and the rest of the world. Saddam Hussein is continuing his
efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Confronted with this reality,
we have to face up to it and deal with it."
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- Many British newspapers embraced the rhetoric with relish.
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- "War will not wait" splashed the tabloid Sun
on its front page, while the Daily Mail trumpeted "Blair lights the
fuse."
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- The right-wing broadsheet Times joined the chorus with
a front page headline "Everything points to war with Iraq."
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- "The elimination of Saddam's ambitions in this theater
is in Britain's national interests," it added in an editorial.
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- Blair, who has twice taken his country to war -- in Kosovo
and Afghanistan -- in just five years in power, said there was no realistic
alternative to removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
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- "Either the regime starts to function in a completely
different way -- and there's not much sign of that -- or the regime has
to change," he said.
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- "This is an appalling, brutal, dictatorial, vicious
regime...the people that would be most delighted if Saddam Hussein went
would be the Iraqi people."
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- SALESMAN FOR WAR
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- But Blair is facing an uphill struggle with an opinion
poll this week showing 71 percent of Britons were against the country joining
any United States attack on Iraq without the blessing of the United Nations.
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- "The important thing...is that the U.N. has to be
the route to deal with this problem, not a way of people avoiding dealing
with this problem," he said, suggesting a bid to get U.N. approval
but hinting the wait would not be indefinite.
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- The left-wing Guardian newspaper -- in an oblique reference
to World War II -- dubbed Blair's speech the Battle for Britain and said
he had made a poor case for war.
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- Blair said no decision had been taken -- either in London
or Washington -- on action against Baghdad, but insisted that he was fully
behind President Bush's increasingly belligerent stance on the "axis
of evil" nation.
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- "The policy of containment as it exists now cannot
be continued effectively," he said. "It simply can't."
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- The Daily Telegraph newspaper said Blair, who adopted
the role of global salesman for Bush's "war on terror" after
the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year was assuming
the mantle yet again for a strike against Iraq.
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- "Blair will demonstratively use his good offices
to bring round the German and French leaders, thereby gaining prestige
in Washington," it said in an editorial, adding that Blair had now
irrevocably tied his future to that of Bush.
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- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said London's
priority is to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
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- But Blair said Baghdad's record of frustrating U.N. arms
inspectors from 1991 until they left in 1998 meant the world would need
convincing they will able to do their job properly.
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- "Weapons inspectors should go back in unconditionally.
Any time, any place, anywhere under a weapons inspection regime that really
makes a difference," he said. "If the Iraqis refuse then we have
to find a different way of dealing with it."
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