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Sunday, November 24, 2024  
21 Jumada Al-Awwal 1446  

Blair faces embarrassing defeat in vote on Iraq probe

Blair faces embarrassing defeat in vote on Iraq probeBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a possible embarrassing defeat in parliament Tuesday, in a vote on whether he should order an inquiry into how Britain joined the war in Iraq.
A parliamentary motion calling for an immediate investigation of the war by a committee of senior MPs was proposed by the minority Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties and will be debated in the lower House of Commons.
Blair is opposed to any inquiry while British troops are still in the country. But rebels from his governing Labour Party, unhappy with the decision to join the US-led March 2003 invasion, could vote with opposition parties in big enough numbers to force and inquiry, according to media reports.
Blair can usually count on a cushion of Labour's 62-seat working majority in the Commons to get him through difficult votes.
Blair is already seen by some as a lame duck after pledging to step down -- under pressure from rebels -- by September 2007, but a defeat in parliament could further weaken his authority and even hasten his departure.
His spokesman asked: "When troops are serving overseas, in whose interests is it to make such an announcement?"
The main opposition Conservative Party -- which voted to join the US-led coalition -- have tabled an amendment to the bill calling for an inquiry once control in Iraq is handed back to the war-torn country's authorities.
The vote is likely to be very close, as an unnamed senior aide to Conservative leader David Cameron has said that if the amendment was not accepted, his party would join forces with the nationalists and the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats in voting for an immediate inquiry.
It provides an opportunity for the first major debate on the war in Iraq since the invasion.
Welsh nationalist MP Adam Price told BBC television: "I think that most Members of Parliament, many accept ... now that we were actually sold this policy based on false claims about an arsenal of weapons that didn't exist.
"We really need to understand how the government came to get it so badly wrong."
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond told GMTV television that the war had "obviously gone badly wrong".
"We are stuck in a bloody quagmire in Iraq with no end in sight," he said.
"It is also to see if we can mobilise the degree of concern in the House of Commons about the developing situation because many, many people think a change of strategy is badly required and if that required an immediate change in prime minister to secure that strategy then so be it."
The Iraq debate, to be followed by a vote, is scheduled for Tuesday evening, although no precise time has been set.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006