BRITAIN/IRAQ: The British parliament yesterday saw a shattering of the bipartisan approach to the war in Iraq. Frank Millar in London examines the change.
Westminster witnessed a watershed yesterday, though it went largely unremarked. This may be because the Conservative Party leader, Mr Michael Howard, had signalled his point of departure over Iraq during Prime Minister's Questions over the previous fortnight. It might also be in part because Mr Tony Blair's familiar charge of "opportunism" has stuck with some of the commentariat.
And it is a charge which will certainly follow Mr Howard as he takes the Tories on a journey pointing (for the moment at least) towards some place other than the firm Atlanticism which has characterised his approach to foreign policy thus far.
One influential Conservative, usually an admirer of Mr Howard, posed this question following yesterday's heated exchanges in the Commons: "Suppose Blair fell over Iraq, and the Tories helped push him. How would that define a Howard premiership in terms of Washington and the special relationship?"
It is an interesting question. For the moment, however, Mr Howard is not answering questions about how he might conduct himself in office. As Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition Mr Howard has (quite properly) reserved the right - notwithstanding his party's support for the war - to question the Prime Minister about the military conflict and its aftermath.
Yesterday, however, he went significantly further and, in the process, shattered any remaining impression of a bipartisan policy over the biggest issue facing the United Kingdom. For Mr Howard linked developments in Iraq directly to the question of "confidence" in Mr Blair's premiership.
The crucial turning point came at the conclusion of three questions from Mr Howard about the Blair government's professed ignorance of a "devastating" report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) alleging systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Mr Howard told MPs that the report "and the allegations in it have led to the greatest crisis in Iraq since the war ended and have added immeasurably to the dangers and difficulties faced by coalition troops, including British troops, in the way they carry out their duties."
Mr Blair first admitted he in fact only read the report on Monday. He insisted there was "no evidence of systematic abuse" by British troops and said the photographs published by the Daily Mirror were "almost certainly fake"; repeated that the concerns raised by the ICRC in February were already known and acted upon; and added that the Red Cross was welcome to have a permanent presence in all British-run facilities in Iraq.
Then Mr Blair played the patriotic card. While these events had been "deeply damaging", he said he would have expected the Tory leader to support British troops on the ground and in true Thatcherite mode he vowed there would be no turning back until the job was done and a sovereign democratic Iraq secured.
Mr Howard refused to yield to Mr Blair but he said the country would conclude the Prime Minister had no answer to the question - why, when it was given to his envoy in Iraq in February, Mr Blair had not seen the ICRC report for three months.
"How can the people of this country have confidence in this Prime Minister and his government?" asked Mr Howard.
Number 10 will shrug off this offensive, questioning just how much bipartisanship there was here in the first place. However, they must be troubled that the Tory leadership has plainly calculated that small "c" conservative opinion in Britain has moved to another place on the war.
And so the task grows more lonely still for Mr Blair, while even previously loyal MPs wonder if events in Iraq might eventually prompt the electorate to question Labour's fitness for office. Yet on this issue the Prime Minister can have no reverse gear and his party - for all its fevered speculation - probably has no choice but to back him. Junk Blair, anoint Gordon Brown, and cut and run before mission accomplished?
That surely would only show them to have been unfit in the first place.