Hain hits back at anti-war calls

The Government today took on Labour dissidents criticising the air action against Afghanistan, demanding: What is your alternative?

The doubters gained a new and senior recruit as former Defence Secretary Denis Healey called for the bombing to stop.

Lord Healey, Labour's deputy leader in the early Eighties and a former Chancellor, said there was an "overwhelming" humanitarian case for halting attacks which were killing many innocent women and children.

"The political argument is equally strong," he said. "It hasn't got any chance whatever of killing Bin Laden or destroying his al Qaeda movement. It is creating more terrorists, turning more people throughout the Muslim world against the West."

Lord Healey said the answer was to send in the SAS and American special forces to "get at Bin Laden".

But Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain retorted that without initial air attacks such a plan would simply be sending servicemen to their deaths.

"Denis has got enormous respect from me and many other people," he said, "but I searched in vain for a practical alternative."

Tony Blair can still rely on support for his resolute backing of the US from the great majority of Labour MPs. A Commons vote this week produced little more than a handful of dissidents and, even in private, backing remains broadly secure.

But ministers are concerned about an erosion of support as well as accusations that Mr Blair, as he races from country to country to shore up the coalition, is seriously neglecting problems at home.

The criticism was a further worry for the Prime Minister as he headed off this afternoon on yet another diplomatic mission, to Washington to see President Bush.

Mr Blair is using Concorde to allow him to attend Prime Minister's Questions (which he missed last week), have talks and dinner with the President and return to London by scheduled overnight flight in time to meet King Abdullah of Jordan tomorrow morning.

Mr Blair is one of a procession of leaders landing in Washington this week to pledge continued support for the US-led assault on Afghanistan.

Ministers in London proclaimed the pledges from Germany (3,900 troops) and France (2,000) as evidence that Britain is not alone in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with America.

Mr Hain told the BBC's Today programme the enterprise had always been "an incredibly difficult project". But he went on: "Whenever I ask the question 'what is the alternative?' I get no answer."

Mr Blair sent a similar message direct to the American people today in an interview with CNN's Larry King. Declaring that the Taliban government had "virtually merged" with al Qaeda, he said the only way to deal with such an enemy was to "eliminate it, eradicate it."