Blair set for historic Iraq visit

Blair says his priority is thanking troops and helping reconstruction

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is to make an historic visit to Iraq to thank UK troops for their role in the war which toppled Saddam Hussein.

He will be the first national leader to visit Iraq since the end of the war in the country last month.

Mr Blair has now arrived in Kuwait on the first leg of his Gulf visit as a row flared up about the failure to find Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

I want to see the British troops to thank them for their magnificent performance during the Gulf conflict

Tony Blair

Speaking to reporters on his flight to the Gulf, he gave no details of when he would travel to Iraq, but the visit is expected within the next 48 hours.

The trip comes hard on the heels of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said searches for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would take time.

Saddam Hussein's regime might have destroyed its banned weapons before the war began, he said.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr Blair said he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.

"Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists.

"We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."

'No hiding'

But former foreign secretary Robin Cook, who quit the cabinet over the Iraq war, said that if Saddam had possessed large stockpiles of weapons, they would have been found by now.

"Plainly it did not have such weapons or they would have found them by now. You can't hide a nuclear reactor, you can't hide a missile factory," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One.

It is important to determine whether the House of Commons was given totally bogus grounds for declaring war

Ken Clarke

And he rubbished Mr Rumsfeld's suggestion that Saddam had destroyed the weapons before the war.

He said: "I mean Saddam was there. He knows he's about to be attacked. He's then going to destroy his weapons so that they are not there after he is defeated? That does not add up.

"If Donald Rumsfeld is now admitting that the weapons aren't there, the truth is the weapons probably haven't been there for quite a long time."

Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke, who opposed the war, said more time was needed for weapons searches.

But it was important to determine whether MPs had been given "totally bogus grounds" for war.

"There are big issues of trust in our leaders about whether or not there ever were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Mr Clarke told BBC News 24.

Leadership

Mr Blair, meanwhile, said the priority in Iraq in the short term was humanitarian tasks and reconstruction.

The prime minister said the visit to Iraq was important in order to thank troops after "a very tough conflict" but said it was not about triumphalism.

"People risked their lives, in some cases lost their lives, and so it's right that I go there and I see the troops there and thank them personally and thank them personally out in the theatre," he said.

Let's not forget this country does have its freedom

Tony Blair

The prime minister said he would also be meeting the UK's new representative in Iraq, John Sawers.

He said: "We need to discuss with the people on the spot what more they need from us and the political leadership to make sure the reconstruction of Iraq proceeds apace."

He said he was optimistic about the security situation in Iraq.

"Down in the south, in Basra and some of the towns there, life is returning to normal," he said.

"In Baghdad there has been a serious security problem but let's not forget this country does have its freedom."

Destiny

He said "the Americans have got a very clear view that they have got to grip the security situation in Baghdad".

He denied suggestions that coalition forces had not been fully prepared for the post-war situation.

Before heading to Iraq, Mr Blair is visiting Kuwait to thank the country's leaders for their support during the Iraq conflict.

The prime minister's trip to the Gulf is the first in a series of whistle-stop international visits over the next few days.

He is due to visit Poland and Russia later this week before attending a meeting of leaders of the G8 group of industrialised states at Evian, France.