Two of Saddam Hussein's mouthpieces today criticised Britain for its close partnership with the United States in the attacks on Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
The state-run al-Iraqpaper in its front-page editorial called British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair "America's messenger boy," saying his recent flurry of travel was intended to relay "American threats and instructions" to other countries.
The paper accused British prime ministers of turning their country into another US state.
"Britain and its rulers have been swallowed by the American shark, and this fact has turned it to an American-Zionist colony," it said.
The ruling Ba'ath party al-Thawranewspaper called Blair "an American lapdog" in its front-page editorial.
The paper accused British leaders of siding with the United States in campaigns against Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan as a way to restore the British colonial past.
Britain played a key role in the US-led coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991.
AP