British Cabinet rift deepens over Iraq war

By ANNE McHARDY Herald correspondent

LONDON - The splits in the British Cabinet over Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance on Iraq widened yesterday when respected minister Clare Short threatened to resign and junior Government member Andrew Reed resigned.

Blair's determination to support US President George W. Bush, even if he attacks Iraq without United Nations backing, spurred the moves.

Short, the Overseas Development Minister and a known left winger, said the speculation over her position was damaging.

She said that if the Americans attacked Iraq with support from Blair and without UN authority, then she would resign.

"I will not uphold any breach of international law," she said.

Her statement provoked anger from Number 10 Downing St, where officials said that the Prime Minister had not been warned.

Yesterday several papers carried stories saying the number of backbench Labour MPs in the House of Commons who were now ready to vote 'no' if war went ahead without a second UN resolution had increased to 200 from the 122 who voted against the Blair Government in a Westminster debate on the war.

If Blair tried to push another pro-war motion through the House he would, on that showing, be dependent on the Conservatives.

The papers said there were 10 junior Government members, the Parliamentary Private Secretaries who act as assistants to ministers, who were expressing quite public unhappiness about potential war.

Reed, a parliamentary aide to Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, is chairman of the parliamentary Christian Fellowship.

He said he respected Blair's "deep religious commitment" but could not, himself, find a "moral cause" for war.

Unhappy colleagues of his include those working for the Attorney-General, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, the leader of the House of Commons, and for Short herself.

Their position reflects that of a growing number within the Labour Party throughout the country who are unhappy about the Prime Minister's apparent indifference to the increasingly vociferous anti-war factions in the country.

There were peace marches in pelting rain all around the country on Sunday, the biggest in Manchester, where three marches converged on the city centre.

Short, one of the few members of the Blair Government to have been active in the last Labour Government before the 1979 election of the Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has had a stormy relationship with Blair.

She has fought hard to retain support and funding for overseas aid.

However, when the Prime Minister's wife, Cherie Booth, was revealed before Christmas as having allowed Australian conman Peter Foster to negotiate to buy two flats in Bristol, where her son, Euan, is at university, it was the sturdy Short who was her public defender.

Both women are from Liverpool, and Short made impassioned pleas for Booth's courage and integrity to be respected.

Even then, though, she was widely known to be unhappy at the readiness of Blair to back Bush's apparent headlong rush to war.

Key developments

* United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US was "in striking distance" of winning passage of the United Nations Security Council resolution

* Powell said he would not be surprised if France blocked it with a veto.

* Iraq said chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix might visit Baghdad on March 17, the deadline proposed by the US and Britain for Iraq to disarm.

* Warplanes taking part in US-British patrols over southern Iraq attacked 5 Iraqi communications sites.

* Tayyip Erdogan was expected to win a byelection that would allow him to become Turkish Prime Minister, opening the way for a new parliamentary vote on a US request to deploy troops in Turkey.