Delegates Split Over Blair’s Iraq Apology

By ED JOHNSON

BRIGHTON, England — For Tony Blair, sorry seems to be the hardest word. A day after the prime minister expressed regret about bad intelligence on Iraq, delegates at the Labour Party’s annual convention were divided over whether they’d heard a genuine apology for the war.

In a contrite, conversational speech that won him a standing ovation, Blair said he could apologize for faulty evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — but he refused to do so for toppling Saddam Hussein.

Significantly, Blair shied away from the "S" word.

Government aides had briefed evening newspapers, whose deadline fell before Blair stepped to the podium, that he would say. "I know this issue has divided the country. I am genuinely sorry about that." The latter sentence was cut in his address, causing surprise and consternation among reporters.

"Sorry, I just can’t say sorry for Iraq," read the headline in The Mirror tabloid Wednesday. "Blame me (up to a point)," said the headline in The Independent newspaper.

Delegates in the seaside resort of Brighton were divided on whether Blair had gone far enough to heal bitter divisions in his party over the war.

"It was half hearted. The buzz around the conference this morning is that it was not enough. Tony Blair has got an awful lot more apologizing to do," Labour lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn, a vocal critic of the U.S.-led invasion, told The Associated Press.

Mohammed Ashraf, a city councilman in Luton near London, disagreed. "I think he went far enough. What’s done is done."

With national elections widely expected in May 2005, the five-day conference was intended as a springboard for new policies and a chance to reunite the party to fight for a third term.

But the convention has been overshadowed by continuing bloodshed in Iraq and the kidnapping in Baghdad of British civil engineer Kenneth Bigley.

The Arab news network Al-Jazeera Wednesday broadcast footage of Bigley pleading with Blair to work for his release.

"Please, please, help me. I’m begging you (Blair), I’m begging you to speak, to push," said Bigley, sobbing from behind the bars of what appeared to be a cage. The authenticity of the tape could not be independently verified.

Some 250 anti-war protesters rallied outside the conference Wednesday. Among the marchers was an 11-year-old Iraqi girl, Zeynab Hamid Taresh, who said she lost her right leg and 17 family members in bombing at the start of the war near Basra.

"They say the war is over, but there are still explosions, and it is much more dangerous," said Taresh, speaking through a translator. She said she is in Britain learning how to use her prosthetic leg.

Anti-war delegates are pushing for a vote on a motion calling on Blair to set an early date to recall British troops from Iraq. The vote would be nonbinding, but could be humiliating for the government.

Blair was once regarded as Labour’s most prized electoral asset — a charismatic modernizer who catapulted the party to power in 1997 after 18 years in opposition to a Conservative government.

Anger over the war, and doubts about the government’s use of intelligence to justify it, have seen his popularity nosedive.

Blair’s principle reason for joining the U.S.-led offensive was the threat posed by Saddam’s stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The government highlighted the danger in a dossier as it tried to persuade a skeptical public of the need for war.

"The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it," said Blair Tuesday. "I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."

"I’m like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong," he said, urging delegates to believe that he went to war to protect Britain’s security.

The jury was out Wednesday on whether the prime minister had managed to put an end to the most divisive issue of his seven-year-long premiership.

"He should have apologized more," said delegate Wayne Busbridge. "But it is evenly split. It is a very emotional subject."

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