Blair to face opposition calls for Iraq inquiry

Prime Minister Tony Blair will face calls today to hold an inquiry into Britain's case for war in Iraq as his rivals attack ahead of next month's general election.

The Liberal Democrats, who opposed the war, placed advertisements in several newspapers showing a smiling Mr Blair beside US President George W. Bush under the headline "Never Again."

"Britain's international reputation has been damaged by the way Tony Blair took us to war," the party's leader, Charles Kennedy, will say in a speech today. "I call again today for a proper inquiry into how we went to war in Iraq."

Iraq emerged as a central election issue for the first time during the campaign over the weekend, with the main opposition Conservative Party accusing Mr Blair of lying over the war.

Its leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair had overstated the "sporadic and patchy" intelligence gathered by Britain's intelligence services on whether Iraq had banned weapons.

"He has told lies to win elections," Mr Howard told BBC television. "On the one thing on which he has taken a stand in the eight years he has been prime minister, which is taking us to war, he didn't even tell the truth on that."

Mr Blair has repeatedly defended his decision to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has denied hyping the threat posed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"I did what I honestly believe was the right thing to do," Mr Blair told the Daily Mirror. "We know Saddam had WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) and we know we haven't found them. But he definitely had them because he used them against his own people."

Most Britons opposed the war before it began and the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has eroded Mr Blair's once sky-high public ratings.

But newspaper opinion polls suggest voters view domestic issues, such as public services and the economy, as more important than Iraq.

They forecast that Mr Blair is on course to win a third straight election on May 5th, albeit with a reduced majority compared to 1997 and 2001.

A YouGov poll for today's Daily Telegraphput the Labour Party on 37 per cent, unchanged from last week, and the Conservatives down one point on 33. The Liberal Democrats climbed two points to 24.

A second poll, for the Daily Mirrorand morning television show GMTV, put Labour down two on 39, the Conservatives static on 33 and the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 20.