Conservative Party attacks Blair's justification of war

BLACKPOOL, England -- Britain's opposition Conservative Party, which strongly supported the war in Iraq, on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of lying as he made the case for military action.

Conservative foreign affairs spokesman Michael Ancram said it was right to topple Saddam Hussein, calling him a "dangerous and recognized threat to international peace and security." But in a blistering, personal attack on Blair, he accused the government of manipulating intelligence material to justify the war.

"Mr. Blair, the case was sound. There was no need to lie," Ancram told the party's annual convention in Blackpool, northern England.

Ancram's attack was dismissed as political opportunism by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

"I regret that the shadow foreign secretary now appears, to paraphrase his speech, to be 'blowing in the wind' on this issue," Straw said.

Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party, said "Tory indignation would ring a little more true if they had showed more skepticism before the conflict began." Campbell's party opposed the war.

The Conservatives, led by Iain Duncan Smith, have had difficulty landing punches on Blair for leading Britain into a war that they supported.

The party leadership is, however, questioning the government's use of intelligence in dossiers published in September 2002 and in February as it tried to persuade a skeptical public why war might be necessary.

Two parliamentary committees have reported that the government's use of intelligence was misleading. In particular, a claim that Saddam could launch chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes' notice failed to make clear that intelligence referred to battle field munitions, not long range missiles.

"I believe that action in Iraq was right," Ancram said. "What was wrong was the way the prime minister approached the war.

"We pressed him to make a case that the British people could trust. He failed to do so. Instead he bent and twisted the truth for his own ends. You didn't need to stretch the truth. You didn't need to manipulate the intelligence material."

Blair, who has been in office for 6 1/2 years, has been on the defensive about the war and the U.S.-led coalition's failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

Duncan Smith has repeatedly called for Blair to resign because of the government's treatment of David Kelly, a weapons adviser who apparently killed himself after being identified as a possible source for a news report criticizing the government's use of intelligence.

A judicial inquiry into Kelly's death is expected to report its findings in late November or early December.