Backing U.S in Iraq put UK at risk, think tank says

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) – An influential think-tank said on Monday
that backing the United States in Iraq put Britain more at risk
from terrorist attacks, an accusation forcefully rejected by
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government.

Security experts said the Iraq war had boosted recruitment
and fund-raising for al Qaeda, suspected of being behind London
bombings on July 7 that killed 55 people.

The report was issued as Britain’s interior minister,
Charles Clarke, met opposition party leaders to seek a
consensus in drawing up tougher anti-terror legislation, such
as outlawing acts preparing or inciting acts of terrorism.

Police probing the London underground train and bus attacks
say they have found no indication the bombs carried timers.
That would mean they were manually detonated by the four
bombers, caught on CCTV camera heading off on their deadly
mission.

The report from the respected Royal Institute of
International Affairs said Britain had suffered by playing
“pillion passenger” to Washington.

“The UK is at particular risk because it is the closest
ally of the United States,” said security experts Frank Gregory
and Paul Wilkinson.

The report provoked a strikingly robust rebuttal.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: “The time for excuses
for terrorism is over. The terrorists have struck across the
world, in countries allied with the United States, backing the
war in Iraq, and in countries which had nothing whatever to do
with the war in Iraq.

“They struck in Kenya, in Tanzania, in Indonesia, in the
Yemen, they struck this weekend in Turkey which was not
supporting our action in Iraq.”

THREAT UNDERESTIMATED

Blair, whose trust ratings plummeted due to the Iraq
conflict, has always refuted the notion that Britain’s role in
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the country less safe.

He argues that terrorism, including the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks on the United States, was a threat well before those
conflicts and has affected many different countries.

In their report, the security experts said British
intelligence services had been preoccupied with Irish
Republican extremists and had looked in the wrong direction for
years.

“As a result of giving low priority to international
terrorism, the British authorities did not fully appreciate the
threat from al Qaeda,” they said.

Wilkinson and Gregory said conducting counter-terrorism
measures shoulder to shoulder with the United States was a key
problem because London was in no way an equal partner.

“Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in
terms of British and U.S. military lives, Iraqi lives, military
expenditure and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism
campaign,” they said.

They said al Qaeda’s profile has also been raised by the
war in Iraq.

“It gave a boost to the al Qaeda network’s propaganda,
recruitment and fundraising,” the report concluded.

Defense Secretary John Reid added his voice to the
government’s dismissal of the report, arguing the whole
international community had to confront terrorism.

“One of the lessons of history is that if you run away from
this it doesn’t actually get better,” Reid told the BBC.

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London,
Marie-Louise Moller in Brussels)