BRITAIN: The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, was standing shoulder to shoulder with President Bush last night, insisting that Iraq would have been no less a problem had Mr Bill Clinton still been in the White House. He quoted the former American president in support of the insistent US/British demand that the UN pass a tough new resolution before weapons inspectors return to Iraq.
As British and US officials continued intense negotiations in New York, Mr Blair insisted there be no "mixed messages" about the world's demand for "total, unfettered, unobstructed access to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
Speaking to reporters on the final day of the Labour Party conference in Blackpool, he again said that while he hoped military action would not prove necessary, it could not be ruled out. Either way, he said, Saddam Hussein would have to comply and diplomacy not backed by the threat of force was "not merely useless" but often counter-productive.
"When you are dealing not with another democracy but with a dictatorship, they don't really understand diplomacy unless they think force is backing it up. Kofi Annan [the UN Secretary General\] was making this point the other day.
"Diplomacy not backed up by force when dealing with a dictator is not merely useless, it can be counter-productive. They have to know that force will be used and that we are prepared to do that."
Mr Blair also repeated that "it would be a fantastic thing if we got rid of Saddam" while maintaining that the purpose of British policy was disarmament. He was speaking less than 24 hours after a spell-binding address to the Labour conference by Mr Clinton, which some commentators interpreted as a barely coded rebuke for Mr Bush and a cry for UN leadership in the attempt to resolve the Iraqi crisis.
There is no doubt that Mr Clinton's speech was carefully co-ordinated with Mr Blair's aides and Number 10 was delighted with the result - a pitch by the former president to the Labour left, telling them it was necessary to look beyond their shared antipathy to a Republican White House and that "last resort" military action might have to be taken without the UN's explicit authority.
Mr Blair showed no embarrassment yesterday, either about Mr Clinton's strong suggestion that he is a restraining influence on the current US administration or about his alliance with President Bush.
"I was Bill Clinton's partner when he was in the White House," Mr Blair said. "He remains a friend of mine and gave a magnificent address to the party conference, but I also have a strong relationship with George Bush as US president. I find him extremely open, straightforward, transparent to deal with over this issue as over other issues."