Blair: NATO Lacks Sense of Urgency

Tony Blair warned today that Nato "lacked the right sense of urgency" over action to restore stability in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as he reported back to MPs on the two-day summit in Istanbul.

The 48-hour conference saw the French president, Jacques Chirac, openly stand up to pressure from Washington and London to use Nato to train Iraqi troops and put more soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan.

Although Mr Blair did not single out his French counterpart by name, he was clearly the target of the jibe.

The Nato deployment in Afghanistan was the first time the alliance had committed troops outside of Europe.

Mr Blair told MPs that during the Istanbul meeting the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, had made a "typically forceful" demand for further troops to help ahead of September's elections.

The prime minister said Afghanistan now had five million registered voters, but expressed worry "that our response is still not sufficient to the scale of the challenge we face".

"Let us be quite plain about what is at stake. If we succeed, the Iraqi and Afghan people prosper, their states become valued partners in the international community, the propaganda of the terrorists that our purpose is to wage war on or dominate Muslims is exposed for the evil nonsense it is.

"Should we fail, those countries would sink back into degradation, threaten their neighbours and the world, and become again a haven for terrorism."

He said that Nato's focus on the terrorist issues showed "at least a start" to understanding this threat and its implications.

And in his Commons statement Mr Blair announced the award of a special civilian medal to mark the extraordinary contribution of the "many British public servants, policemen and women and volunteers" who had played crucial roles to help the Iraqi people rebuild their lives.

The prime minister described the determination of the new Iraqi government as "inspirational". "But the challenge especially around Baghdad is formidable. There is simply nothing more important to the stability of Iraq or that of the wider region."

He again blamed attacks in Iraq solely on "former Saddam supporters and terrorists from outside Iraq linked to al-Qaida."

"They are killing as many innocent people as they can, trying to destroy oil and power supplies and create chaos, so that the path to stability and democracy is blocked," he said.

Details of how the Iraqi security and police forces will be built up are due to be unveiled next month.

Mr Blair said those would give a clearer idea of how long British troops would be needed to stay in Iraq.

"We will stay there as long as it needs to get the job done," he said, repeating that no decision had yet been taken on whether to send more British troops to the Middle East.

Mr Blair: added: ""But the battle is here and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even for those who passionately disagreed with our decision to go to war, the issues are now clear, the side we should be on without doubt, the cause manifestly one worth winning.

"Succeeding in it would be a fitting way to reinvigorate the transatlantic alliance and heal its divisions."