No easy options for Blair

No easy options for Blair

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

There is only one thing absolutely certain about the outcome of this war - a massive aid and reconstruction package for Iraq will be needed.

To what degree that is needed depends largely on the way Saddam Hussein goes out and how overwhelming is the force needed to depose him.

There will be massive damage to Iraq, even with targeted assaults

But nobody who has watched the bombing of Baghdad can be under any doubt that no matter how precise the targeting may be there will be substantial damage to the fabric and infrastructure of the country.

So it is no surprise that the politicians are already turning their attention to reconstruction.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has told the war cabinet he will do everything in his power to ensure Iraq's frozen assets are used for the benefit of the people of the country.

Labour Party chairman John Reid pressed home the moral argument in his address to the Scottish conference on Saturday.

The prime minister is under no illusion that there is still massive opposition to this campaign

I for one hope that that long, dark night which the Iraqi people have had to suffer will very soon be coming to an end, he declared.

These are messages we will hear increasingly as this conflict enters its most intensive, bloody and uncertain phase.

The prime minister is under no illusion that there is still massive opposition to this campaign.

There is an understandable reluctance by many to speak out too loudly while British troops are involved in the war.

But, as Saturday's demonstrations have shown, the opponents are not about to let the government off the hook.

Meanwhile leading anti-war rebel and Hampstead MP Glenda Jackson has delivered a passionate attack on the conduct of the war, branding it obscene, immoral and illegal.

Better future

So once this is all over - and everyone desperately hopes that is as soon as possible - the questioning will start again.

What the government is eager to do is to turn attention towards the better future this war is supposed to create for the people of Iraq.

That is not to suggest ministers want to avoid the brutal facts of the war, simply that they want to remind people what they believe it is all about.

They are also keen, of course, to urge the Iraqi people and armed forces to abandon any loyalty they have to their doomed leader.

But, probably unlike any conflict before it, the opposition to this war is not abating.

There is unlikely to be an easy peace for Tony Blair when it is over.