British Cabinet Minister Warns Blair over Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 23, 2002

British Cabinet Minister Warns Blair over Iraq

British International Development Secretary Clare Short said on Sunday that she can not support an all-out war against Iraq.

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British International Development Secretary Clare Short said on Sunday that she can not support an all-out war against Iraq.

In an interview with the ITV Television's Sunday program, Shortsaid there must not be another war in which innocent Iraqis are killed.

"We cannot have another Gulf War. We cannot have the people of Iraq suffering again. They have suffered too much. That would be wrong," Short said.

Short is the second minister to express her concern after the Leader of the Commons, Robin Cook, said he could not support military action unauthorized by the United Nations.

"We have to find a way of enforcing, quite rightly, UN resolutions," she said.

"We should be ready to impose the will of the United Nations on them if they don't cooperate, but not by hurting the people of Iraq," said Short.

"We have to find a way of making Saddam Hussein know he's got to obey the UN. We know that he has in the past played games with the UN enormously. We've got to have remedies that will hit him and the elite and not the people, and I think we need more thinking about that," said the minister.

Earlier, a general who commanded the British 7th Armored Brigade in the Gulf War said a military invasion of Iraq would be "totally unjustified".

Major General Patrick Cordingley told The Sunday Telegraph that he believed Iraq posed no imminent threat to Britain or its interests and that "the case for war has not yet been made by the politicians".

Blair's cabinet is scheduled to meet on Monday afternoon, the day before Parliament is recalled. The ministers will be briefed on the contents of the British dossier said to contain compelling evidence of how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has continued to develop weapons of mass destruction.

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