French vow to veto 'war by timetable'

Tony Blair's problems over Iraq deepened yesterday when France and rebel Labour MPs said that Saddam Hussein's decision to destroy some al-Samoud missiles showed the UN inspections regime was working.

As the Prime Minister continued his telephone diplomacy in an attempt to win the support of other countries, Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, widened the gulf between Paris and London by accusing the US and Britain of making "war on a timetable".

"You cannot say 'I want Saddam Hussein to disarm' and at the same time when he is disarming say they're not doing what they should," he told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme:

M. de Villepin dismissed Mr Blair's comparison between the Iraq crisis and the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s. "We are not a pacifist country," he said. "We are ready to take full responsibility. And, we said, if the use of force at one point is absolutely needed, then of course we might take these decisions.

"But the question is – and sometimes at night I wake up thinking [it] – have we tried everything? France says no ... Are we going to oppose a second resolution? Yes."

In a further setback to Mr Blair and President George Bush, the Turkish parliament unexpectedly blocked the deployment of 62,000 American troops to its bases.

Meanwhile, Labour MPs warned that failure to win a fresh UN mandate would fuel the rebellion which saw 121 of them vote against Mr Blair's strategy last week.

But, despite the mounting opposition, there were strong signals that Mr Blair would back military intervention by America without a new UN resolution.

Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Wales, said that Britain "would have to face that situation" if there was overwhelming evidence that President Saddam had not complied with UN demands.

"The worst thing for me, having got to this position where we have got him [Saddam Hussein] to some extent on the run, to some extent complying very late in the day but not enough – would then be to back off entirely," Mr Hain said.

Labour MPs seized on M. de Villepin's remarks. Tam Dalyell, the longest-serving MP, wrote to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, saying: "How can you say Saddam must disarm and, when he does, you dismiss it as a cynical trick and playing games?"

Chris Smith, a former cabinet minister, said that dismantling al-Samoud 2 missiles showed that the inspections process was starting to work. "If it's working, let it carry on working. Don't truncate it, don't cut it short," he said on GMTV's Sunday programme.

But Mr Smith "sensed" that Mr Blair had already made up his mind to take military action. If Britain went to war without a new UN resolution, a "lot more" MPs than voted against the Government last week would voice their concerns in the division lobby.

Mr Blair spoke about the Iraq crisis yesterday with Ricardo Lagos, the President of Chile, a members of the 15-strong UN Security Council yet to declare its position.

The Prime Minister also spoke to two European leaders, Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark and Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands.

Downing Street insisted that Iraq's move on missiles "falls several miles short of the full, immediate and unconditional compliance" demanded by the UN. British ministers were furious at M. de Villepin's intervention, saying privately that it would "play into Saddam's hands".

Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "Are we really arguing at this stage, before the UN process is complete, that the best thing to do is to start slaughtering people in their thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, as well as losing British and American and Australian lives in the process? I don't think so."

But, answering questions from Independent on Sunday readers, Mr Blair said: "I would never go to war if I thought it was morally wrong." Asked how he could reconcile a pre-emptive attack on Iraq with his Christian beliefs, he replied that after sending British troops into action in Kosovo and Afghanistan, he could "look at myself and say that we did the right thing".