'Iraq fatigue' may spare Blair at polls

LONDON - British prime minister Tony Blair ordered another probe into the Iraq war on Tuesday but analysts said growing "Iraq Fatigue" would probably spare him yet more electoral damage.

"I think Blair has kicked the ball into the long grass," MORI pollster Robert Worcester said after Blair set up an inquiry into the quality of British intelligence on banned Iraqi weapons. "I think he will get away with it."

Fellow pollster Peter Kellner from YouGov agreed: "I think the British public is suffering from Iraq fatigue. It is not affecting people's daily lives," he told Reuters.

"This is an issue of concern to politicians. lobbyists and the media -- the chattering classes. I am not sure it will have a vast impact on the next election."

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has dented Blair's trust ratings and Worcester stressed: "The war is a catalyst for the broader question -- Can we trust our prime minister?"

Iraq has barely left the headlines over the past year and analysts argued that the electorate may now be getting weary of the issue.

Last week, Blair was exonerated by judge Lord Hutton's report on the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly, outed as the source of a BBC report that Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq to justify war.

But there was a backlash afterwards against Blair with cries of "whitewash" raining down on his victory parade.

Worcester pointed to the way defence has nosedived as a top priority among voters. "A year ago, it was 64 per cent. Now only one in four say it is one of the more important issues," he told Reuters.

President George W Bush's decision on Monday to set up an independent commission on US intelligence piled the pressure on Blair to do the same -- but the British leader insisted he was not being wrong-footed by Washington's move.

The findings of the British inquiry are due out in July well before the next election, expected in May 2005. The American results will not be out until after the November presidential elections.

"I think both men will win their elections," Worcester forecast. "They are tarnished but they are not going to be damaged."

And Bush has far more pressing concerns on the Iraq front to deal with in the run-up to his bid for re-election.

"What is crucial for Bush is getting the hell out of there, starting to transfer responsibility, the continuing security problem," said Professor John Curtice at the University of Strathclyde.

"Bush's problem is the body bags," Curtice said of the continuing death toll as American election day approaches.

The issue of whether weapons of mass destruction ever existed in Iraq has stirred much greater passions on the British side of the Atlantic than it ever did among American voters.

Acres of newsprint were devoted in Britain to the fallout from the Hutton inquiry but Tony Travers, political analyst at the London School of Economics, wondered if now enough was enough.

"I think the public as a whole remains relentlessly wedded to domestic policy issues," he told Reuters.

"After a point, the public will lose track as to which inquiry is which. Many will be thinking 'I thought we just had an inquiry into that."'

"I would indeed not be surprised if the public is not suffering from Iraq fatigue."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq