The first wave of British tornado jets engaged in Operation Desert Fox returned safely to their base in northern Kuwait, the Ministry of Defence confirmed last night.
The tornado GR1s, carrying 1,000 lb bombs, had roared into action at around 3 p.m. London time, as the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, gave Parliament a detailed account of the US-British military strike against President Saddam Hussein.
In an emergency statement to MPs, Mr Blair said that on Wednesday he had authorised the participation of British forces in the strikes against Iraqi targets. The attack on Wednesday night had maximised surprise, said Mr Blair.
"The operation is now continuing and, as I speak, British tornado aircraft are engaged in action," the Prime Minister said.
He told a sombre House of Commons he had spoken to Group Capt Rich Jones, who is in command of the British forces, adding: "We are proud of them."
In a quiet but authoritative performance at the despatch box, Mr Blair said he could not promise that President Saddam's downfall would be secured by military action. But he repeated his objective to "degrade" President Saddam's capacity to build and use weapons of mass destruction, and "to diminish the threat he poses to his neighbours by weakening his military capability."
And he fiercely rejected suggestions that the US-led action was related to internal American politics, specifically to the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.
Rounding on left-wing critics, Mr Blair said: "I refute this entirely. I have no doubt that action is fully justified now." And - having earlier told his cabinet that failure to back the US-led action would have been a "dereliction of our duty" - Mr Blair told the Labour MP, Mr George Galloway: "Had he [Mr Clinton] acted differently. . . that would have been a dereliction of his duty as President of the United States."
Mr Blair said he had taken the decision to commit British forces with "a profound sense of responsibility." And he won the "full support" of the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, who said there had been "no alternative" to the use of force.
Mr Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, also backed Mr Blair, saying the raids were "an act of grim necessity" and "inevitable" following the UN weapons inspector Mr Richard Butler's report on Iraqi obstruction.
But Mr Blair clashed with a number of left-wing MPs on his backbenches, including Mr Tony Benn, who called the bombing "immoral" and "a flagrant breach" of the UN Charter.
Mr Benn told the Prime Minister: "There are many people in the world - and I am one of them - who believe that what has been done is deeply immoral and contrary to an ethical foreign policy of which we boast." For that reason, the former minister said he would force a division at the end of last night's emergency Commons debate "to vote against the war".
Mr Blair said he had "no doubt" that Britain and the US had the "proper legal authority" from the relevant UN resolutions for their action. And he told Mr Benn: "You also condemned the action we took to drive Saddam Hussein back out of Kuwait. Does anyone really believe that if we had not taken military action in the Gulf War that - what? - Saddam Hussein would have negotiated his way out of Kuwait?"
The Prime Minister told the House: "At some point we decide that we either carry on in endless negotiations, with Saddam able to destroy records of where these weapons are, and to prevent inspections, and to build up his weapons capability again - or we decide we're going to use force.
"Unless you take a completely pacifist view and say you never use force, I don't know how someone can reasonably say at the conclusion of these seven years `Yes, he's got to be prevented developing these weapons, but no, we're never prepared to use force to stop him'. "
Mr Blair masked his anger when Mr Galloway denounced Britain's role, which he described as "the tail of this verminous and mangy desert fox" and personally attacked "Clinton the liar". But MPs gave Mr Blair his biggest cheer of the afternoon when he said Mr Galloway had every right to express his view, even though it was contrary to his own, adding: "Not something you would have had if you were living in Iraq."
Responding to Mr Blair's Commons statement, Mr Hague said that while the immediate priority was the military action under way, the government should spell out the "long-term strategy behind it".
Mr Hague said there was "overwhelming evidence" that President Saddam could not be trusted to meet his international obligations. And he argued, therefore, that "the prime objective of western policy" should be to secure a change of government in Iraq.
"We believe the overall objective of our policy should be to remove Saddam from power, rather than temporarily checking his ambitions," said Mr Hague, adding that no one wanted to be in the position , once the present operation was over, of being "forced again to take the same action" in the years to come.
But later, when he opened the emergency Commons debate, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, denied that President Saddam's downfall was the objective of the military action against Iraq. "It is our objective to weaken the military machine with which Saddam Hussein terrorises his own people, and protects himself from their need to be rid of him," he told MPs.