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Poll adds pressure on Blair

Blair: More voters want him to quit than stay, says the new poll.
Blair: More voters want him to quit than stay, says the new poll.

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LONDON, England -- Pressure is mounting for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down over the apparent suicide of a weapons expert in a furious row over the UK government's case for going to war in Iraq.

A poll in the Mail on Sunday newspaper showed 43 percent of people believed Blair should resign over the affair, 42 percent believed he should stay in office and 15 percent were undecided.

The figures in the YouGov poll, taken the day after the judicial inquiry into the death of David Kelly adjourned for 10 days to allow Judge Lord Hutton to decided which witnesses to recall for cross examination, were the first to show that more voters are against Blair than for him.

The poll comes as a new blow for the leader of a Labour government with a huge parliamentary majority who has seen his personal trust ratings slump since the war to oust Saddam Hussein.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon fared even worse than Blair in the poll, with 62 percent calling for his resignation and only 14 percent wanting him to stay.

Also on Sunday, Blair's former Cabinet colleague Clare Short launched a ferocious attack on the PM, accusing him of an "abuse of power" that drove Kelly to take his own life.

The outspoken former Cabinet minister said Kelly's life had been made "hell" by Blair's Downing Street office, the British defense ministry, Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett and MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee, who she said had used the scientist to get at the BBC.

Kelly's name was leaked by the government as the source of a BBC report accusing Blair's office of exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in order to strengthen the case for war. The scientist apparently slit his wrist three days after a humiliating public grilling by a parliamentary committee.

His wife testified on Monday to the intense strain Kelly had been under and his sense of betrayal by his government employers.

Her moving testimony came just days after Blair took the stand, taking responsibility for the affair but rejecting the allegations and stating that if the charge of having knowingly mislead the country was proven he should resign.

Short, who quit her post in May because she disapproved of the war in Iraq, wrote in the Independent on Sunday newspaper that Blair should stand by his own words over the Kelly affair.

"The prime minister has told us that the claim that he had knowingly exaggerated the threat from Iraqi chemical and biological weapons would be a resignation issue. It is now clear that the threat was exaggerated," she said.

Short, a maverick with a track record of speaking her mind, accused Blair and his communications director Alastair Campbell, who quit a week ago, of effectively mounting a coup in the party, imposing their own policies by bludgeoning their opponents and lying.

"We have a prime minister so focused on presentation that there is inadequate consideration of the merits of policy.

Kelly's death plunged Blair's government into crisis.
Kelly's death plunged Blair's government into crisis.

"And beneath the smiling demeanor, a ruthlessness that is accompanied by a lack of respect for proper procedure, and a willingness to be "economical with the actuality," she wrote. "The cabinet has not functioned as a decision-making body since 1997."

Last week at his monthly news conference, Blair avoided questions about Kelly and Iraqi WMDs.

Two intelligence officers told Hutton inquiry the previous day that they were unhappy with the strength of language in a now-infamous government dossier on Iraq's weapons, which included a claim that WMDs could be deployed in 45 minutes. (Full story)

Evidence has also exposed apparent inconsistencies in statements from top officials and ministers.

"Let the judge do the judging," Blair said. "I know what the headlines are today, but the important thing about this inquiry is that the judge is hearing the totality of the evidence," Blair told the news conference.


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