BRITAIN: British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair again faced down his critics in the Commons yesterday and insisted mistakes in pre-war intelligence about Iraqi weapons did not mean the war was unjustified.
And the consensus at Westminster was that Mr Blair was again in the clear amid speculation that he could reshuffle his cabinet as early as today, and might even risk the wrath of Chancellor Gordon Brown either by restoring Mr Peter Mandelson to the cabinet, or by naming the twice-resigned former minister as Britain's next EU Commissioner.
During a tense debate yesterday Mr Blair mocked Mr Michael Howard's suggestion that the intelligence had been decisive in persuading him and the Conservative Party to support the war.
Having challenged Mr Blair to this head-on confrontation about the Butler Inquiry report, Mr Howard had a difficult day which compounded Tory gloom following last week's third place in the by-elections.
However, on the eve of his tenth anniversary as Labour leader, Mr Blair heard an unusually strong performance from Mr Charles Kennedy in which the Liberal Democrat leader expressed the hope that the prime minister would feel "a sense of shame" over the war.
And there was a hint of continuing trouble arising from the Butler report when former Conservative leader Mr William Hague and the former Commons leader Mr Robin Cook both questioned if former Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chairman Mr John Scarlett could now take-up his appointment as the next head of MI6. Mr Scarlett accepted "authorship" of the disputed dossier on behalf of the JIC and Lord Butler concluded the mistaken decision to reveal this "had the result that more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear." Mr Tam Dalyell, and the former Conservative minister Mr John Gummer, both said Mr Blair should now resign following Lord Butler's conclusion that the government's dossier had omitted vital caveats and taken flawed intelligence to "the outer limits."