Lib Dem leader sees 'defining moment' of conflict nearing
Britain may have to accelerate the withdrawal of forces from Iraq if elections in January are derailed by terrorist attacks, Charles Kennedy warned yesterday."We have always argued for the democratic-process timetable to run in tandem with a phased plan for withdrawal of the occupation forces, our immediate interest and responsibility obviously being British forces," the Liberal Democrat leader said.
But he drew back from making detailed predictions about what he called a political "Rubik's Cube" which was changing hour by hour. British defence planners were almost certainly working on withdrawal options, he said. The statement by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, that the war was illegal was "very, very damaging, if not devastating, from the government's point of view", Mr Kennedy told the Guardian.
If the Iraq survey group confirms last week's Guardian report that there were no weapons of mass destruction, it could prove "a defining moment" in the crisis - spilling over into both the November US election and Britain's likely election next spring. A negative ISG report and Mr Annan's BBC interview would amount to "game, set and match against the war being prosecuted", Mr Ken-nedy said in advance of his party's Bournemouth conference next week.
"If ... Kofi Annan's analysis is true, there is going to have to be a fundamental rethink about whether the phased withdrawal is going to take place," he said. In an interview that also set out his three key points for next week's conference - an even more upbeat event than last year's, which came in the wake of Lib Dem victory in the Brent East byelection - Mr Kennedy acknowledged that the US and Britain had a "legal and moral duty, having occupied and regime-changed Iraq, to leave it in a better condition than they found it". But if the US-led occupation was running counter to the democratic process, it might be better to substitute troops from other UN member states, preferably Muslim ones. Tony Blair and George Bush are committed to maintaining the occupation, albeit only with the consent of the Iraqi government from next year, until the country is stable and united.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1306455,00.html
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