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Blair Says 'Action Will Follow' Should Iraq Spurn Resolutions
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
By Warren Hoge
The New York Times

In London, a move by dissident members of Parliament to hold an unofficial session in a church hall to protest Mr. Blair's failure to heed their call for a special session before Oct. 15, the end of its recess, appeared to lose steam with Mr. Blair's declaration that he would submit the matter to full debate. "There is no substitute for the prime minister at the dispatch box responding to members of Parliament from all sides of the house," said Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign policy spokesman and an outspoken opponent of swift action in Iraq. Mr. Campbell added that Mr. Blair "still has to make his case to the British people."

LONDON -- NYT
Prime Minister Tony Blair today took on British critics of his hard-line stance on Iraq, pledging to work for a solution through the United Nations and not to take any action without submitting the case to Parliament.

In a tough speech to the Trades Union Congress at its annual convention in Blackpool, Mr. Blair coupled his promise to involve the United Nations with a warning that "action will follow" if President Saddam Hussein of Iraq ignores demands to let inspectors back into the country.

"If the challenge to us is to work with the United Nations, we will respond to it," he told the delegates. "But if we do so, then the challenge to all of us in the United Nations is this: the United Nations must be the way to resolve the threat from Saddam, not a way of avoiding it."

On Monday, the union held a noisy debate over Iraq, with a motion declaring that Britain should obtain United Nations approval for any action barely winning out over a more defiant measure condemning any move on Iraq. A number of union leaders had predicted that Mr. Blair would be heckled and jeered when he appeared today, but his 25- minute speech was greeted with respectful silence throughout and a standing ovation at its conclusion.
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Dan