Troops to hand out leaflets explaining Blair's plan for Iraq

Tens of thousands of leaflets detailing Tony Blair's personal pledges for the future of Iraq are to be distributed by troops across Iraq, as part of a renewed publicity campaign to win the support of the Iraqi people.

Downing Street said that 60,000 copies a day of the Prime Minister's message would be printed to be handed out by British troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Mr Blair used interviews on Abu Dhabi Television and the BBC's Arabic Service to reassure Iraqi civilians that the Anglo-American coalition was "doing everything possible" to minimise casualties and insisted that the Middle East peace process was "as important" as the coalition's war to oust Saddam Hussein.

The leaflet said: "Our troops will leave as soon as they can. They will not stay a day longer than necessary. We will make sure deliveries of vital aid such as food, medicine and drinking water get through."

The message echoed Mr Blair's New Labour slogans at home. Mr Blair said in the leaflet that a future Iraqi administration would "develop public services and spend Iraq's wealth not on palaces and weapons of mass destruction but on schools and hospitals ... The money from Iraqi oil will be yours. It will no longer be used by Saddam Hussein for his own benefit and that of his regime."

Mr Blair told Abu Dhabi Television that people should be "dubious" at reports of civilian casualties of coalition attacks, despite the deaths of 14 people last Wednesday in a Baghdad market and the deaths of 62 civilians last Friday.

Mr Blair said: "I would ask people to be cautious of these reports. The Baghdad street market bombings – we are sure that the first one is not coalition forces, we are still trying to check out the second one.

"I understand why, when people see the carnage and the bloodshed, they feel very angry about it. But I ask people not to treat these reports as correct until they are actually proven.

"There will be innocent civilians that are killed but we have done everything we possibly can to minimise this."

Mr Blair told the BBC World Service's Arabic Service: "I would say to people in Iraq, the numbers that have lost their lives [in the war] are only a small number compared with hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives under Saddam."

Military chiefs also moved to convince the public that precision bombing was serving to avoid civilian deaths.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire, the Chief of the Air Staff, said 90 per cent of the bombs dropped during the air campaign were "smart weapons", compared with the 1991 Gulf War when only one in 10 of the munitions was precision guided. He insisted that he was "proud" of the RAF's record in avoiding civilian casualties and praised the performance of British troops.