IRAQ: The British prime minister has branded the Iraqi president an "international outlaw" and warned his "barbaric regime" will only bow to the authority of the UN if confronted with the threat of force.
In a speech to the Trade Union Congress in Blackpool, Mr Blair sought to defuse mounting trade union and Labour Party unrest about the prospect of war, declaring himself ready "to deal with Saddam through the United Nations". However, reaction among trade union leaders was mixed, as Mr Blair gave no undertaking to seek the "specific authority" of the UN before committing British forces to any US-led assault against Iraq.
As the world awaited President Bush's critical address to the UN tomorrow - and the details of any US/UK proposal for a time limited "ultimatum" for the return of weapons inspectors - an uncompromising Mr Blair made clear his impatience for action.
"Let it be clear he [Mr Saddam] must be disarmed. Let it be clear there can be no more conditions, no more games, no more prevaricating, no more undermining of the UN's authority."
That message was echoed by the British Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon - in the US for the September 11th anniversary and for talks with his opposite numbers at the Defence Department - who congratulated President Bush on his readiness to seek the widest possible international backing for action to resolve the threat posed by Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Blair had the same message for his most critical domestic audience to date in the ongoing campaign to win the hearts and minds of a highly doubtful British public.
On Monday the TUC rejected a hard left motion opposing any military action, in favour of a leadership proposal insisting any action be carried out only with specific UN authority. Mr Blair told the trade union leaders yesterday he believed it right to deal with the issue through the UN.
"After all, it is the UN he [Mr Saddam\] is flouting. He, not me or George Bush, is in breach of UN resolutions. If the challenge to us is to work with the UN, we will respond to it."
However he then turned the challenge back on his critics: "If we do so, then the challenge to all in the UN is this: the UN must be the way to resolve this threat from Saddam, not the way to avoid it." It must be clear, he continued, that should the UN be ignored, "action" would follow.
"Diplomacy is vital. But when dealing with dictators - and none in the world is worse than Saddam - diplomacy has to be backed by the certain knowledge in the dictator's mind that behind the diplomacy is the possibility of force being used," said Mr Blair.
The need for resolution was simple: "If we do not deal with this threat from this international outlaw and his barbaric regime, it may not erupt and engulf us this month or next, perhaps not even this year or the next. But it will at some point."
And, Mr Blair told the TUC bluntly: "I do not want it on my conscience that we knew the threat, saw it coming and did nothing." With the Taliban gone, he said Mr Saddam's was unrivalled as the world's worst regime: "brutal, dictatorial, with a wretched human rights record".
He had twice started wars of aggression in which more than one million people had died, and when the UN weapons inspectors were expelled from Iraq in 1998 there were still "enough chemical and biological weapons remaining to devastate the entire Gulf region".
The prime minister sometimes suspected "a kind of word fatigue" about those chemical and biological weapons: "We're not talking about some mild variants of everyday chemicals but anthrax, sarin and mustard gas, weapons that can cause hurt and agony on a mass scale beyond the comprehension of most decent people."
Mr Blair promised that, before there could be any question of taking military action, parliament would be consulted and MPs given "the fullest opportunity" to debate the issue.
However, Labour MP Mr Graham Allen was pressing ahead with plans to book Church House, close to Westminster, as the venue for an unofficial sitting of MPs next week, having yesterday had his attempt to convene in the Commons chamber rejected by the Westminster authorities.