Iraq is not part of war on terror, says top UK diplomat

Former cabinet minister Helen Liddell sparked a diplomatic row today, as she rejected the idea that the Iraq invasion was part of the "war on terror" - despite being high commissioner to Australia, whose prime minister believes Iraq is the frontline of the war on terror.

Ms Liddell, who was Scottish secretary at the time of the invasion in 2003, went further, dismissing the term as a "tabloid slogan."

Potential embarrassment comes from the fact that Australia's rightwing PM, John Howard, has been one of George Bush's closest allies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Howard has said that Australian troops must stay in Iraq because it is a key front in the "war on terrorism".

Her comments were seized upon by Australia's opposition Labour party, which said that they exposed the "lies" of Mr Howard's Liberal-National coalition.

Ms Liddell said in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday that the term "war on terror" was a "tabloid slogan".

"We have never seen Iraq as part of the war on terror," she said.

"Certainly we are engaged in a war on the streets in Iraq against terrorism, but our raison d'etre for our involvement in Iraq has not been about terrorism."

The Australian Labor party's defence spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, said that Mr Howard's government had been embarrassed.

"I'm sure it wasn't intentional on her part but she's embarrassed John Howard and his government, she's exposed the lie that our participation in Iraq is all about the war on terror," he told reporters.

But Mr Howard told the Australian media there was no split with the UK over Iraq.

"The British government believes Iraq is very much part of the war against terrorism," said Mr Howard.

"There can be no doubt in the mind of the head of the British government that Iraq is part of the battleground against terrorism, and our view and the view of the British government is identical."

In fact, Mr Howard's remarks have already been partially contradicted by the stance of the cabinet minister Hilary Benn, who this week explicitly said the British government did not use the phrase "war on terror", as it gave succour to terrorists and was too narrow a definition.

Mr Benn said: "In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone.

"And because this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives."

It is "the vast majority of the people in the world" against "a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common", he said.

"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence.

"And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

The Australian Labor party, which is leading in the polls ahead of this year's general elections, is promising to withdraw the country's 1,400 troops from Iraq if it wins power.

The remarks were pounced on by the SNP, currently campaigning for the May 3 elections in Ms Liddell's native Scotland.

Angus Robertson, the party's international affairs spokesman, pointed out that Mrs Liddell was a cabinet minister when the decision to go to war in Iraq was made.

He said: "As a cabinet minister who was part of the collective decision to invade Iraq, her comments make it even more clear that Tony Blair only took us into the Iraq war on the coat tails of President Bush, and for no other reason."

Mr Robertson added: "George W Bush and Tony Blair sold the Iraq war on the basis that it was part of the war on terrorism, and even that its weapons of mass destruction could be obtained by terrorists.

"We now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and now Helen Liddell is telling us that it wasn't part of the 'war on terror'."

The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Ms Liddell's comment "seems to me to undermine the whole philosophy the [British] prime minister has used".

Ms Liddell is no stranger to controversy. Nicknamed "Stalin's Granny" at Westminster for her bruising reputation, she had to fight off accusations that her cabinet post as Scottish secretary was a non-job in the wake of devolution.

A newspaper printed her appointments diary, after it was revealed that she had time for French lessons, with only a Burns dinner during one week's worth of appointments.

She inherited the late John Smith's Monklands seat, but won it in what the Guardian called the "nastiest sectarian battle in Scotland for decades".

She is also the author ofa racy thriller, Elite, about a ruthless female Scottish politician who becomes deputy prime minister - and the mistress of the future US president.