World>Terrorism & Security
posted May 6, 2005, updated 11:20 a.m.

Iraq war batters Blair at ballot box

Labour Party, and US-British relationship, weaker in aftermath of voter disaffection with war

By Jim Bencivenga | csmonitor.com

When President George Bush calls to congratulate his closest foreign ally Tony Blair on being reelected to a historic third term as British Prime Minsiter, the call is likely to be bittersweet.

Though British voters gave Mr. Blair and his Labour party a win, they "also sharply rebuked him over his Iraq policy, reducing his parliamentary majority and putting his political future in doubt," reports the Los Angeles Times.

Many voters rapped Blair over his decision to join President Bush in invading Iraq in March 2003. Critics said Blair exaggerated prewar intelligence and was dishonest in making the case for war. ...party members had 'defected because of the war and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction." ...

There was little doubt that much of Labour's difficulties emanated from Blair's controversial decision to join the United States in invading Iraq. The issue came to dominate his reelection bid even as he struggled to keep the campaign focused on economic successes and generally popular social policies.


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British newspapers saw Blair's victory as a Pyrrhic one for Labour. Labour retained control of parliament but only the Liberal Democratic Party could lay claim to receiving votes from all regions and districts of Britain.

A swing of five percent to the Tories in the Labour stronghold of London showed voters "anger with Tony Blair," reports the Independent.

The BBC reports that a further sign of the impact of the Iraq war, was a "significant swing from Labour to Lib Dem [Liberal Democratic Party] in most of the 40 seats with a large Muslim population."

The pro-Labour Guardian observed that "Mr. Blair's pledge to serve out a third term seemed likely to be undercut by the unexpectedly strong swing against Labour, sparking speculation that the chancellor, Gordon Brown, would take over as prime minister relatively soon.

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote that the Iraq war was the central issue of the just completed national campaign. Blair's failure to recognize the deep resentment fomented by his foreign policy brought down electoral wrath on his "head."

The man who once was the great architect of Labour's rescue from 18 wilderness years is today the man who alone takes the blame for so many lost seats.
He cannot long survive this, for he alone dragged his reluctant party to places they did not want to go - above all to Iraq.

Meanwhile, in an exclusive story the New York Times reported Friday that North Korea appeared "to show rapid, extensive preparatons for a nuclear weapons test."

American officials were "sufficiently alarmed" by North Korean actions that they "have extensively briefed their Japanese and South Korean allies and warned them to be prepared for the political implications of a test," reports the Times.

While satellite imagery is often hard to interpret, nuclear arms experts say it is easy to distinguish tunneling for a nuclear test site from, say, a mine. While both require the removal of vast quantities of rock, only a test site puts the rock and other sealing materials back into the hole after the weapon is installed deeply inside. The goal is to create a impenetrable barrier that keeps the powerful blast and radioactivity locked up tight inside the earth.
In this case, a senior intelligence official who specializes in nuclear analysis and has seen the images said, 'you see them stemming the tunnel, taking material back into the mine to plug it up.'

'There's grout and concrete that goes into the hole, and normally you don't see that in a mine. A mine you want as open as possible.'

And on a third foreign front, Mr. Bush on Thursday renewed economic sanctions that he had imposed on Syria one year ago, accusing Syria of supporting terrorism and undermining US efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, reports China's The People's Daily.

In a letter to the House speaker and Senate majority leader, Bush announced his decision and said Syria poses "a continuing, unusual, and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," reports China Daily.