UK/IRAQ

Scotsman: Straw 'begged Blair' not to join Iraq war

TONY Blair found himself embroiled in a fresh Iraq crisis last night after it was claimed Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a desperate last-minute plea for him to call off the war.

Just days before the fighting started, Straw begged the Prime Minister not to send British troops into action, according to a new book on the affair.

The hugely damaging allegations emerged last night just hours after hundreds of Iraqis fired shots in the air and chanted "America is the enemy of God" following the burial of 10 Iraqi policemen killed accidentally by US troops.

Straw is said to have argued that the United Nations’ refusal to back the invasion would make it damaging for Britain to take part. The Foreign Secretary reportedly urged Blair to tell President George Bush that British troops would help clear up the mess and keep the peace once the war was over, but would play no part in Saddam’s overthrow.

But the shocked Prime Minister rejected Straw’s plea point-blank, telling him there was no going back and making him promise to keep quiet, according to the book by political journalist John Kampfner, entitled Blair’s War