Blair behaving like 'white vigilante'

Tony Blair came under heavy fire today from two of the most senior Church of England bishops for acting like a "white vigilante" in Iraq.

In the most outspoken attack, the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright accused the Prime Minister and President George Bush of promoting "a very strange distortion of Christianity" to justify their actions.

He said: "For Bush and Blair to go into Iraq together was like a bunch of white vigilantes going into Brixton to stop drug dealing. That is not to deny there is a problem to be sorted, just that they are not credible people to do it."

In another outspoken rebuke, the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, claimed Mr Blair had acted in an authoritarian manner and failed to listen to people.

He urged the Prime Minister to consider the "higher authority" he would one day face to account for his actions. Referring to Iraq, he said: "It just seemed to me there was a real lack of listening. We still have not found any weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq. Are we likely to find any? Undoubtedly a very wicked leader has been removed but there are wicked leaders in other parts of the world."

Their comments in interviews to two newspapers will irritate Mr Blair, a devout Christian, who recently declared he was ready "to meet my maker" and answer for his decisions on Iraq.

They came as a major new row broke over Mr Blair's claims that "massive evidence" had been uncovered to show Saddam Hussein had secret laboratories for WMD production. In a highly embarrassing setback for No 10, the US official running Iraq dismissed Mr Blair's claim which he made in a Christmas broadcast to troops.

Asked in a television interview to comment on the claim, Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, described it as a "red herring". He said: "I don't know where those words come from but that is not what David Kay (the head of the Iraq Survey Group) has said. It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me."

When told that the claim had been made by Mr Blair, Mr Bremer backtracked and said there was more evidence that had yet to be made public.

Meanwhile former International Development Secretary Clare Short stepped up her calls on Mr Blair to quit over the war, saying his "deceit" was worse than that of John Profumo, the former war minister who resigned in the Christine Keeler affair.

She said: "Profumo lied about having an affair with a prostitute and had to resign. If you are going to start getting into deceit when you are going to war and risking human life it has gone too far."