Blair’s Post-Iraq Tribulations

Last week was a rough one for British Prime Minister Tony Blair. And it wasn’t just because protesters wearing Pinocchio noses greeted him when he arrived at the High Court in London to testify before the Hutton Inquiry into the apparent suicide of David Kelly–a government weapons expert and the source for a BBC report in May alleging that Blair’s aides knowingly inserted false information into a dossier on Iraq’s unconventional weapons. Blair gave a virtuoso performance, saying he would have had to quit if the report had been proved true. Still, a CNN/TIME poll found that only 6% of the British public today consider his government a more trustworthy source than the BBC for facts about the war. And Blair’s closest adviser, communications director Alastair Campbell, resigned on Friday. Though Campbell had long made known his intention to leave soon, some regarded him as the first political casualty of the scandal.

Blair’s friends in the Bush Administration don’t seem worried that his troubles might be contagious. “We feel for them,” says one senior aide, “but our situation is different.” Still, every political blow Blair takes seems to increase his stature in President Bush’s eyes. “Maybe Bush will put a bust of Blair in the Oval,” jokes a second aide. It wouldn’t be unprecedented. He keeps one of another wartime Prime Minister in that office: Winston Churchill. –By John F. Dickerson and Jeff Chu