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Backing war in iraq put UK at risk Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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WRAPUP 1-Backing US in Iraq put UK at risk, think tank says
(Updates with Straw, investigation developments)
By Paul Majendie
LONDON, July 18 (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.
Defence 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)
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