'Lonely' job of war leader

'Lonely' job of war leader

David Frost conducted a rare interview with the former leader

Former prime minister John Major knows the responsibility of sending young Britons off to war.

In 1991, he gave the order for British action in the Gulf after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

So it was with a sympathetic tone that he offered support to Tony Blair - who now also faces the prospect of involving UK troops in conflict in Iraq

It is, Mr Major said, a "lonely business".

"However confident and certain in public people leading a country into war may be, in private there will be many occasions when they run again and again through the arguments," he told the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme.

"Questioning whether they're right; questioning the validity of what they are doing; wondering how it is going to turn out.

"Each time they may decide it is right, as I'm sure Tony Blair does, but the belief that he and George Bush are not sitting there, carefully thinking, worrying, being concerned about that isn't so - they are."

The troops who go into Baghdad as liberators may find themselves kept there as peacekeepers, perhaps for quite a long time

John Major

Mr Major, who rarely speaks publicly, added his backing to the UK Government's stance on Iraq.

But he was keen to stress that it will be a different conflict to that in 1991 and that America and the UK have to be prepared to deal with substantial and long-lasting problems created in the region by it.

Twelve years ago, there was worldwide support for the war, including from an Arab alliance, and the objectives were simply to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

This time, Mr Major observed, the ante has been upped and the Iraqi leader will feel more threatened and therefore may throw all he has at his aggressors, including chemical weapons.

'Armageddon'

As he is backed into a corner he is likely, Mr Major said, to try to "create Armageddon", an economic chaos in the country, including setting fire to oil fields.

The greatest problem facing the UK and the USA, however, will come after Saddam Hussein is ousted, he said.

"The problems of winning the war are clear. The problems of winning the peace are going to be much more complex."

Much of the country's infrastructure would have been destroyed and there would be a need for a huge humanitarian effort.

Much of Baghdad's infrastructure may be destroyed

"The difficulty is chaos after the war and that the American troops, the British troops, the Australian troops, who go into Baghdad as liberators may find themselves kept there as peacekeepers, perhaps for quite a long time," said Mr Major.

He said that it would be "next to impossible" to establish a stable long-term government from the rival Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish populations.

He said it was likely the Shia would form a majority government next door to Shia controlled Iran and that could create instability in the whole region.

Mr Major stressed the importance of moving on from Iraq to tackle the problems in Palestine.

"I think a crucial part in ensuring the relationship between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world begins to improve after this war is a really determined effort at a peace process in Palestine," he concluded.