The Scotsman - Top Stories - Back-bench rebellion rocks Blair: TONY Blair suffered the biggest rebellion of his premiership last night, when 121 Labour MPs - almost half of the party's back-benchers - voted against the government's policy on Iraq. In a damaging split in the Labour ranks, a string of former cabinet ministers led scores of back-bench rebels to defy a three-line whip by supporting a motion stating the case for war remained unproven, despite a personal appeal by Mr Blair. The amendment was defeated by 393 to 199 votes, with 52 Liberal Democrats, ten nationalists and independents and 13 Conservatives joining the Labour rebels. A second vote on the government motion expressing support for the United Nations' route was won by 434 votes to 124. The size of the Labour revolt was much higher than the 100 originally predicted and will raise questions about Mr Blair's ability to persuade the country and his party that Britain and the United States should proceed with military action.
Interesting.
And then again ... maybe whether or not he's in trouble is all in the eye of the beholder:
House of Commons Backs Blair on Iraq: British lawmakers on Wednesday backed Tony Blair's determination to disarm Iraq, but rebels from his own Labor Party mounted their biggest challenge to the prime minister since he came to power in 1997. While the government carried two votes decisively, the losing dissenters made a stronger-than-expected showing, underlining the strength of opposition to war among Britons and within Blair's party. The prime minister emphasized that the House of Commons vote was not about whether Britain should go to war against Saddam Hussein he said it was too soon to make such a decision. Instead, lawmakers by a vote of 434-124 approved a government-sponsored motion which backed the prime minister's efforts to resolve the crisis through the United Nations and called on Iraq "to recognize this as its final opportunity" to disarm. Opponents included 59 Labor lawmakers. By a tally of 393-199, legislators rejected an amendment that said "the case for military action against Iraq (is) as yet unproven." Among those supporting the measure were 122 of Labor's 410 lawmakers, making it the biggest revolt within the usually disciplined party since it took power.
I think it can reasonably be said that perhaps -- just perhaps -- The Scotsman may have An Agenda.
That said, it may indicate that Blair may pay some considerable domestic political costs if the UN doesn't approve the US/UK resolution:
..... The Turks aren't the only ones having a hard time selling the war to their legislature and electorate — even President Bush's staunchest ally, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, is struggling. A parliamentary vote on a motion, rejected by Blair, to give UN inspections more time in Iraq saw almost one third of the legislators of Blair's own Labor Party vote against his government. Although Blair, with the help of the opposition Conservatives, still won the vote by a comfortable 2-1 margin, the fact that almost one third of his own party's legislators broke party discipline on a crucial war vote was a stark reminder that the Blair is in danger of losing the leadership of his own party — particularly if the war proceeds without UN authorization.
Or maybe it doesn't. British politics are puzzling at the best of times.
And speaking of costs .....
(LA Times, registration required) Iraq War Cost Could Soar, Pentagon Says: The Pentagon has begun telling the White House and Congress that defeating Iraq and occupying the country for six months could cost as much as $85 billion, according to sources — considerably more than what senior administration officials have been saying in public. Combined with aid for regional allies such as Turkey, the price tag for the conflict could top the $100-billion mark, twice the war costs cited just last month by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and an amount that the White House dismissed as outlandish last fall.
(LA Times, registration required) A Huge Postwar Force Seen: Peacekeeping and humanitarian operations after a war with Iraq would probably require "several hundred thousand soldiers," the Army's chief of staff said Tuesday — a force approaching the number of U.S. troops massing for a possible war in the Persian Gulf. Gen. Eric K. Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Bush administration would need to keep a large force in Iraq even after the war to curb ethnic tensions and provide humanitarian aid. Asked to name a figure, the four-star general said: "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." [...] The general's statement that a peacekeeping force approaching the estimated 200,000 Americans now forming an arc around the Persian Gulf would be required after a war stunned some lawmakers. One senior Democrat questioned whether the Bush administration could go forward with a war that would require such a force after combat unless it received more support from the United Nations Security Council. So far, only three of the other 14 council members have indicated support for the administration's plans. "It would be a huge proportion of the deployable force," Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in an interview. "It reinforces the importance of trying to keep the Security Council together.... There's no way we can keep 200,000 troops in Iraq for a substantial time. That's too large a force." Troops from other countries would be needed for such a large peacekeeping operation, Levin said. The Army, the branch usually called on for such missions, puts the number of troops available to be deployed abroad at 293,000, out of a total of 480,000.
So 200,000 of 293,000 troops will be needed just to keep the peace in Iraq after the war.
My, but that ought to make things interesting. Bush may have a grand plan for "liberated Iraq" (just how liberated is a country when it's being occupied by 200,000 foreigners, one wonders), but however grand his plan is, Congress is highly unlikely to pay for it during hard economic times. They will be even more unlikely to pay for it once the outlay for the war gets diverted from the rest of the budget and trips the country back into recession. It may or may not be foolish of them, it may be shortsighted ... but it is highly likely.
America's costly new global role: President Bush envisions a Middle East of peace and stability, a region that moves increasingly toward a neighborhood of democratic states no longer led by despots or providing a breeding ground for terrorists. But it's becoming clear that the costs of such an effort - in terms of US treasure and military forces - is likely to be enormous. And it comes at a time when the United States finds itself entering an era not unlike the cold war - militarily engaged around a world marked by potential danger points ranging from Iraq and nearby Afghanistan to the Korean Peninsula, the Philippines, and Colombia.
Mind, I don't think Congressional reluctance will stop anything at this point -- having given the preliminary permission, Congress is both unlikely and unable to tie his hands at this point -- but Congress can, and most likely will, refuse to bear the entire cost of occupying and rebuilding Iraq.
(This may be especially true if, as was reported on a recent 60 Minutes, Saddam has laid/plans to lay a black ring of VX nerve toxin around Baghdad's outskirts. It would certainly kill more than a few soldiers trying to cross it, true, but it's more likely to kill thousands upon thousands of Iraqis. And cleaning it up, if that's even possible, would be beyond nightmare. That may be the sort of thing to push Congress into saying, "This is now somebody else's problem.")
Posted by iain at February 27, 2003 03:35 PM
