Would-be UK leader attacks Blair

Former British Finance Minister Kenneth Clarke, bidding to take the reins of the opposition Conservative party, launched an attack yesterday against Tony Blair's Iraq policy which the Conservatives had backed.

"The disastrous decision to invade Iraq has made Britain a more dangerous place," Mr Clarke, 65, said in a speech in London.

The Conservatives, party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, have long been seen as the most pro-American of Britain's major parties. The party backed Mr Blair's decision to support US President George W. Bush in war in Iraq in 2003.

But that made it difficult for them to challenge Mr Blair's foreign policy, the area where he was seen to be most vulnerable during an election in May. Mr Clarke, a critic of the war from the outset, was one of the few exceptions in his party's ranks.

"The decision by the British government to become the leading ally of President Bush in the Iraq debacle has made Britain one of the foremost targets for Islamic extremists," he said in the speech, a key address in his bid to lead the party.

Suicide bomb attacks in London last month which killed 52 people drew new attention to the question of whether Mr Blair's support for the war made Britain more vulnerable.