-Caveat Lector- Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited Observer site and thought you should see it.
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited Observer site, go to http://www.observer.co.uk Fleet Street goes topsy-turvy after dossier skirmish Can war be avoided? Talk about it here Iraq: Observer special Peter Preston Saturday September 28 2002 The Guardian They may not frighten Saddam Hussein, but (by golly) the Fleet Street Irregulars could frighten Tony Blair if he tries to lead them into a fresh Desert Storm. Seldom in newspaper history have so many bold opinion-formers been scattered so shambolically all over the shop. Who would you expect to rally most faithfully behind a Labour Prime Minister waving his dossier at an evil tyrant? Yes: through thick, thin and countless peerages, the Mirror has been there. No longer - or 'No, No, No' longer in lead headline terms. 'We said we wanted killer facts. Instead, these are marshmallow ones.' How about the Independent ? It is not impressed either and its political editor, Donald Macintyre, sees doom on the horizon. If the US doesn't give Saddam one last chance, the PM will face a 'terrible dilemma. And if he resolves it by promising to back the US in just the kind of unilateralist war he never himself wanted, then Tuesday night's rebellion could start to look like a walk in the park.' Maybe the good old Guardian will be helpful? Only a bit. It liked Blair's day in the Commons rather better than expected. 'More measured... little of the simplistic second-hand rhetoric which pretends to be on George Bush's linguistic wavelength... an acknowledgment of the intellectual and political need for a more grown-up case.' But whose grown-up case is that? Yes, the Guardian 's: and not all listeners seem to have heard the same debate or read the same dossier. Polly Toynbee tuned in and found only 'a blazing moral light' portending 'uncharacteristic recklessness from Blair'. And nobody, of course, would call the FT reckless, characteristically or uncharacteristically. It perused the dossier and found no 'compelling evidence' for doing much. So the Prime Minister needed new allies. Whoopee! Here comes the cavalry. 'He didn't just crush his critics - he left them high and dry, stranded by the sheer stupidity of their pleas for appeasement' according to Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun. (Lead headline: ' He's Got 'Em... Let's Get Him' ). Charles Powell, Lady T's old foreign affairs guru, praised Blair's 'steadfastness and courage' in the Telegraph. Janet Daley, a carpet bomber of a rhetorician, pronounced the 'moral case against war at best naive and at worst idiotic' just across the page from him. The Times found the dossier 'credible', the PM 'cool and cogent' and 'most impressive in his passionate endorsement' of sticking close to Bush. Should Blair feel suitably comforted? Hardly. Everywhere, despite all the praise for his Commons performance, there were contradictions and ambivalencies. Some were obvious. The papers who had slated him hardest on Monday morning after the countryside demo were now digging in beside him in the same foxhole. The papers he will need for any euro referendum were chucking brickbats and marshmallows his way. And within the same sheets there were notably wobbly lines. The new editor of the Times might be on board, but one old editor (Simon Jenkins) found 'Britain wandering in a daze... This dossier is not serious'. And the Telegraph's leader writer, notwithstanding the Blair backers all around him, seemed to harp on unconscionably about the UN and countering a backbench unease. 'The war on terror has obviously taken second place to a campaign with less obvious incitement for backbench rebellion'. But maybe the most curious case of the lot - the one most tempted to lie down in a darkened room - was the Mail. You'd think that General Grumpy would be hell bent on zapping Saddam, especially after reading 'these chilling facts which can simply not be ignored'. But, no; there was nothing new here, nothing to explain why toppling the beast of Baghdad was necessary, not even 'a shred of evidence' to show any intention of strikes against Western states, nothing to bind in 11 September or Osama. The Prime Minister 'had a very good day', the Mail said, teeth gritted, but you'd barely have guessed it from coverage which promoted Prince Charles' grumpy letters to top of the shop. There is, in short, nothing predictable here, only milling confusion. The dossier and allied stuff didn't come cost free. It posited costs very close to home. We shall have much more agonising (and back-stabbing) to endure before this is over. Meanwhile, maybe, there are other scenarios to ponder? What if Blair launched a joint euro and splatter Saddam referendum? 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