Blair faces dilemma over extra troops

Tony Blair flew back to Britain today facing his toughest decision of the war so far - whether to send more British troops to reinforce stretched coalition forces in Iraq.

Up to now the Prime Minister has insisted the UK has enough servicemen to "do the job" against Saddam Hussein, with about 45,000 now in the Gulf.

However, the United States today confirmed it is set to send another huge force of 120,000 more troops to bolster its personnel in Iraq.

Mr Blair and President George Bush are certain to have discussed troop levels at their summit at Mr Bush's Camp David retreat. But both men have refused to go into details about military planning.

It is thought the US would like Britain to supply around 4,000 more troops - a difficult total to achieve for the armed forces whose personnel are on duty all over the world as well as having to provide cover for striking firefighters at home.

The difficulties coalition forces have had in taking Basra in the south of Iraq have underlined the likely need for reinforcements. The city was originally planned to be secured by some British troops while others joined the USled push towards Baghdad.

Mr Blair, who was chairing a meeting of his war cabinet this morning, acknowledged it would take time to loosen Saddam's grip.

"I've always known that it was likely to have tough and difficult moments and I do point out again we're a week into this and an awful lot has been achieved," he told Radio 4's Today programme.

"But you're not going to prise the grip of Saddam off the country when it's been there for over 20 years."

"When you've had a whole series of security services repressing the local people, it was never going to be a situation these people were simply going to give up power and go away."

In a diplomatic breakthrough, Mr Blair appeared to have secured a crucial new United Nations resolution to get large amounts of humanitarian aid into Iraq very soon.

The resolution to get the oilfor-food programme back and running again could be achieved as early as today or next week after Germany supported the British proposal.

Mr Blair said after meeting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York there was "every chance of that happening within the next 24 hours".

He added: "That will be the UN door open again. I think that will make a big difference to attitudes all the way round."

He said the future of post-Saddam Iraq should be in the hands of Iraqis and not the Americans or the British. He said: "Now what we need to do is to try and make sure that we have as representative a system of government as possible and that's something we need to work out with the UN."

He referred to the recent summit in the Azores which included Prime Minister José Maria Aznar of Spain.

"That is why we agreed - myself and President Bush, Prime Minister Aznar at the summit that we had in the Azores - that not just the humanitarian element but also the civil administration in Iraq should be governed by UN resolution."

Mr Blair also claimed there were "real" links between terrorist groups and rogue states in possession of weapons of mass destruction, such as Iraq. These links convinced him that his decision to join the US-led assault on Iraq was right, he said.

Mr Blair suggested that the British public had still not recognised the true threat to its safety in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the USA.

He added: "I believe that there is this new security threat and I think that we really haven't opened our eyes to it. I think America has, in a sense, because of September 11, because it was such a gross atrocity that it shook and changed its entire psychology.

"But the security threat is real. The link between these rogue aggressive states with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups - those links are real."

Meanwhile US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld suffered a big blow today when one of his key aides and architects of the war plan resigned as chairman of a Pentagon advisory panel.

Hardliner Richard Perle stepped down after facing allegations of a conflict of interest over his work for the bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing Ltd.

Mr Perle said he would remain a member of the Defence Policy Board while stepping down as chairman, and quit his consulting job with Global Crossing.

"As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defense Policy Board," Mr Perle wrote to Mr Rumsfeld.

Mr Rumsfeld accepted Mr Perle's resignation as chairman but asked that he remain a member of the board.

"He has been an excellent chairman and has led the Defence Policy Board during an important time in our history," Mr Rumsfeld said in a statement.

"I should add that I have known Richard Perle for many years and know him to be a man of integrity and honour," he added.

In a letter to Chris Nash, a senior vice-president at Global Crossing, Mr Perle wrote: "In light of the recent controversy reported in the press, I think it best that I withdraw from performing any further services for the company.