Tony Blair is set for talks with Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi. Their meeting comes after the British PM played down claims that he had been warned a year before the war to oust Saddam Hussein of the chaos that might follow. Mr Allawi will meet Mr Blair at No 10 for several hours today, and is expected to stay on for a meeting with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw tomorrow before flying to Washington for talks with President George Bush. The Downing Street talks are likely to focus on whether elections in Iraq can still go ahead in January as planned despite the ferocious violence unleashed there in the last few weeks.
Mr Blair has tried to stamp down claims that he had ignored warnings about the lack of planning for a post-war Iraq. Leaked memos from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and senior Whitehall officials were published in the Daily Telegraph but the PM insisted: "Having read in the papers that apparently I was warned of the chaos that was going to ensue in Iraq, I actually got the minute Jack sent me. It didn't do anything of the sort. "What it warned of was this: it's very important that we don't replace one dictator, Saddam Hussein, with another." ... "I totally agree with that." Mr Blair added: "The idea that we did not have a plan for afterwards is simply not correct. We did, and we have unfolded that plan, but there are people in Iraq who are determined to stop us."
| The enemy does get a vote. |
He said Iraq was "the very crucible of the fight against terrorism, against groups that are prepared to kill or take hostages, or do whatever they can in order to prevent Iraq becoming a stable, democratic country". |