Blair critic links blasts, Iraq

2005-07-17 12:30

London - Former British cabinet minister Clare Short said on Sunday she "had no doubt" the London bombings were linked to the war in Iraq, after Prime Minister Tony Blair dismissed the idea in a forceful speech.

The former international development secretary - who resigned from Blair's government over the US-led Iraq war - warned that mooted new anti-terror legislation would act as a recruiting agent for extremists, in an interview to be broadcast on the GMTV television programme on Sunday.

"Some of the voices that have been coming from the government talk as though this is all evil, and that everything we do is fine, when in fact we are implicit in the slaughter of large numbers of civilians in Iraq and supporting a Middle East policy that for the Palestinians creates this sense of double standards - that feeds anger," she charged in the interview.

Public anger following the London bombings has been largely directed at the attackers, rather than at government policies - easing fears of a backlash over war in Iraq, as happened in Spain following the Madrid bombings in 2004.

Speaking at a Labour Party conference in London on Saturday, Blair strongly rejected claims that the July 7 London bombings were a response to his decision to take Britain into the Iraq war.

"If it is Iraq that motivates them (Islamic extremists), why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected Iraqi government?" he asked.

"What we are confronting here is an evil ideology," he said. "It is not a clash of civilisations - all civilised people, Muslim or other, feel revulsion at it."

" But it is a global struggle, and it is a battle of ideas, hearts and minds, both within Islam and outside it."

Blair's office this week added the London bombs to a list of al-Qaeda-linked attacks around the world -- emphasising the point that terrorism is a global problem that pre-dates the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The rush-hour attacks on London's transport system claimed 55 lives, with some 700 others injured, police said on Saturday.

- AFP