I was a young man then, and it was clear to me that those innocent souls who were slaughtered by these Nazi extermination squads were killed because they did not share the race, or the religion, or the ideology of their executioners. I thought then that such thinking was pretty terrible. I still think it's pretty terrible today. Of course it affects my judgment when I come to consider the view from the US.

The View from America

America is a great democracy. It consists of very many people, with very many different views. And there is no such thing as the view from the U.S. There is a view from this administration, or from some previous administration. And I can talk to you about that. But, I want to remind you, that when America began in 1776, it was in a Revolution again King George, - King George of England I mean. (Laughter) I don't know why you're laughing.
Because we live in a great democracy, there are those here and in other parts of the world that don't believe in the rule of law. They say that's nonsense, that's idealistic dreaming. If you've got the power, use it. That's the way the world has always been run. Countries have grown by conquest, that's the way to go. That was not the view of Justice Jackson. He said: No more! And he didn't invent that prohibition. The IMT judges went into the question of ex post facto law. The idea that war was impermissible had been an evolving doctrine from the First World War. The legal committee of the League of Nations at the time was unanimous that aggression was a crime, but the best that could be done was to agree that in future it would be punished - regardless of the rank or status of the responsible perpetrator.. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 specifically prohibited the use of armed force.

Truth is that the leaders of important powers in the world today are not prepared to give up their right to use force in their national interests, when they believe it's necessary, or even as a preemptive matter as far as the United States is now concerned. That is the policy of this administration as confirmed by the Quadrennial National Defense Strategy Reviews issued by the President and the Pentagon. We specifically reserve the right to act unilaterally in defense of our national interest when the Administration sees fit. Of course, there are many citizens who think that's correct; that's what Presidents are supposed to do. But, even at the risk of being labeled an idealist or a dreamer, I ask: where is that policy getting us? Have we found peace that way? Have we served our people that way? Have we advanced our reputation worldwide by staying the course to show resolve ?

When I look at the view from America, I see two different trends. Let us first view things, which, in my opinion, do not serve our national interests. The present security strategy of the United States is a repudiation of the most important principle coming out of the Nuremberg trials. If you compare the published national security strategy, with the judgments of the Nuremberg trials, it is clear that they are not compatible. The argument made by "realists" is that times have changed; we live in a nuclear world where the mushroom cloud looms. Terrorists do not respect the law. To meet the new threats they feel they can disregard or stretch the law. They invent new terminology. It's "soft law". Soft law means you're violating the law, but you're trying to find a moral basis in order to justify what you're doing. Well, that's one way to approach it, and there are good lawyers who have taken that position. I think it's a very dangerous practice to allow people to decide that the law doesn't work so they're entitled to ignore it. If the law doesn't work, what you must do is to improve the law; not discard it. Imagine what would happen if every time a judge rendered a bad decision, or they passed a new law, which may have been a bad law, you decided you were entitled to disregard it. What would the world look like? We'd be back to Wild West. That may bring nostalgia in some Texas hearts, but as a policy for peace in the world, I don't think that would be very effective. An illegal act does not become legal when it is done with good intentions.

The main evidence lies in leaked documents relating to a crucial meeting chaired by the Prime Minister in July 2002 - the documents which supported the Sunday Times story, published during this past election campaign, about how Blair promised George W Bush in April that year that Britain would back regime change.

A briefing paper for the ministers and officials at the meeting - this was in effect a British war cabinet - laid out two alternative US war plans. The first, a "generated start", involved a slow build-up of roughly 250,000 troops in Kuwait. Allied aircraft would then mount an air war, which would be followed by a full-scale invasion. The second option was a "running start", in which a continuous air campaign, "initiated by an Iraqi casus belli", would be mounted without any overt military build-up. Allied special forces giving support to Iraqi opposition groups on the ground would be joined by further troops as and when they arrived in theatre, until the regime collapsed. A few days after the meeting, the Americans opted for a hybrid of the two in which the air war would begin, as for a running start, as soon as the Iraqis provided the justification for war, while at the same time an invasion force would be built up, as for a generated start.

The record of the July meeting in London, however, contains a revealing passage in which Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, tells his colleagues in plain terms that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime". What is meant by "spikes of activity" becomes clear in the light of information elicited from the government by the Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell, who asked the Ministry of Defence about British and American air activity in 2002 in the southern no-fly zone of Iraq - the zone created to protect southern Shias after Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed their 1991 uprising against him.

The MoD response shows that in March 2002 no bombs were dropped, and in April only 0.3 tonnes of ordnance used. The figure rose to 7.3 tonnes in May, however, then to 10.4 in June, dipping to 9.5 in July before rising again to 14.1 in August. Suddenly, in other words, US and British air forces were in action over Iraq.

What was going on? There were very strict rules of engagement in the no-fly zones. The allied pilots were authorised to fire missiles at any Iraqi air defence weapon or radar that fired at them or locked on to their aircraft. As was noted in Foreign Office legal advice appended to the July 2002 briefing paper, they were only "entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems".

That May, however, Donald Rumsfeld had ordered a more aggressive approach, authorising allied aircraft to attack Iraqi command and control centres as well as actual air defences. The US defence secretary later said this was simply to prevent the Iraqis attacking allied aircraft, but Hoon's remark gives the game away. In reality, as he explained, the "spikes of activity" were designed "to put pressure on the regime".

What happened next was dramatic. In September, the amount of ordnance used in the southern no-fly zone increased sharply to 54.6 tonnes. It declined in October to 17.7 tonnes before rising again to 33.6 tonnes in November and 53.2 tonnes in December. The spikes were getting taller and taller.

In fact, as it became clear that Saddam Hussein would not provide them with the justification they needed to launch the air war, we can see that the allies simply launched it anyway, beneath the cloak of the no-fly zone.

In the early hours of 5 September, for example, more than a hundred allied aircraft attacked the H-3 airfield, the main air defence site in western Iraq. Located at the furthest extreme of the southern no-fly zone, far away from the areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on the Shias, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected.

It would be another nine weeks before Blair and Bush went to the UN to try to persuade it to authorise military action, but the air war had begun anyway. The number of raids shot up, from four a month to 30, with allied aircraft repeatedly returning to sites they had already hit to finish them off. Senior British officials insist that no RAF aircraft opened fire until it was at least locked on to by an Iraqi radar, but it is difficult to see how the systematic targeting of Iraqi installations could have constituted "a necessary and proportionate response".

The Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans "when the shooting starts".

The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.

The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.

Although only 12 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on to the H3 airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad and close to Jordan, many support aircraft took part.

The strikes were carried out by nine American F15 Strike Eagles and three RAF Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft flying from Kuwait.

At least seven types of aircraft took part. Fighter cover was provided by US F-16 Fighting Falcons and RAF Tornado F3s from Saudi Arabia. RAF VC10 tanker aircraft flying from Bahrain were among the support aircraft.

These also included EA6b Prowlers, which send out signals to confuse enemy radar, and E3a Awacs aircraft that co-ordinate operations and carry out reconnaissance of any response.

RAF Tornados also took part in the reconnaissance. American central command refused to go into detail about the number of aircraft involved in the raid.

It said: "Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a self-defence measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft."

The Pentagon said that the raid was launched in "response to recent Iraqi hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone".

Iraq had made 130 attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft this year.

The Ministry of Defence in London refused to confirm that RAF aircraft had taken part, but defence sources said that Tornado ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft played a key role. The attack on what the American central command described as an "air defence command and control facility" was the first time that a target in western Iraq had been attacked during the patrols of the southern no-fly zone.

Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad.

Central command said it was still assessing the damage caused by the attack. If the air defence installation was not destroyed, a second raid is expected.

As well as blinding Iraqi radar to any special forces helicopters, the loss of the H3 installation would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on Iraq a trouble-free route into the country.

In a further sign that America was preparing for war, a Pentagon official confirmed that heavy armour, ammunition and other equipment had been moved to Kuwait from huge stores in Qatar.

Thomas White, the army secretary, said: "We have done a lot with pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure that they are in the right spot to support whatever the president wants to do."

Any war on Iraq is likely to begin with a gradual intensification of attacks on air defences. But yesterday's raid appears more likely to be related to the special forces Scud hunts.

It was the SAS which specialised in the attempts to hunt down the Scuds during the Gulf war. Although the raids were largely unsuccessful, they spawned a series of rival books by former members of the regiment.

The aggressive tactics were ordered by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who disclosed in September that he had urged commanders to focus their retaliatory strikes not just on Iraqi radar and missile systems but also on air defense communications centers in an attempt to degrade Iraq's air defense network.

Last month, U.S. military officials acknowledged that they used an incident of Iraqi fire on jets patrolling the northern no-fly zone to justify a retaliatory strike in the south. The tactic represented another escalation of enforcement activity by the Bush administration.

"The Iraqi regime has increased its attacks on the coalition, so the coalition has increased its efforts to protect its pilots," said Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa. "Every coalition action is in direct response to Iraqi hostile acts against our pilots, or the regime's attempts to materially improve is military infrastructure south of the 33rd parallel."

Anthony H. Cordesman, a former defense official at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the increased U.S. air attacks are about far more than retaliation. "You enforce containment when you carry out these strikes, and you deter Iraq from any kind of military adventure," Cordesman said. "And when you conduct these strikes, you are preparing part of the battleground for a war. But it doesn't mean that you've gone to war, and it doesn't mean war is inevitable."

Degrading air defenses in southern Iraq, said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute with ties to defense contractors and the Pentagon, will enable the U.S. military "to send in almost anything its wants -- bombers, fighters and helicopters with Special Operations Forces." Freedom of movement across the border for U.S. aircraft would be especially important in a war against Iraq, Thompson said, since the Pentagon envisions flying thousands of troops into airfields inside Iraq aboard slow-moving C-17 transports.

Retired Air Force Col. John Warden, a key figure in planning the U.S. air campaign against Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said every radar system and missile destroyed by U.S. aircraft will help war planners. "Anything that would need to be knocked out that is knocked out now saves some sorties once the war starts," Warden said. "I suspect some of the attacks are really just an intensification of the tit for tat that has gone on for a long time -- but with some obvious value in the event of a war."

The U.S. military established the no-fly zone over southern Iraq in 1991 and over northern Iraq in 1992 to enforce U.N. resolutions to protect Shiites and Kurds from attack by the Iraqi military and to keep Baghdad from moving its forces toward Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Over much of the past decade, U.S. and British warplanes have patrolled the zones and engaged in periodic airstrikes against Iraqi targets, but nothing on the scale of the past five months.

Virtually all of the attacks occur in the southern no-fly zone out of deference to Turkey, which allows U.S. and British aircraft to patrol the northern no-fly zone from Turkish bases and exercises some control over the operation.

The United Nations does not recognize the no-fly zones or the U.S. assertion that it is enforcing U.N. resolutions. Last fall, Russia's foreign ministry said escalating attacks by U.S. and British warplanes against Iraqi air defenses have made it more difficult for U.N. efforts to resume weapons inspections in Iraq.

Iraq says it fires at the aircraft because they are violating Iraqi airspace. "Not many people realize that a war has been going on for the last several years in the no-fly zone," Gen. Amir Saadi, a top Hussein adviser, said in a December interview. "The very people that Britain and the United States claim to be protecting, they're killing them, maiming them, depriving them of their normal livelihood and also destroying the infrastructure which is there to serve them."

U.S. military officials say they go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. They would not comment on how much the attacks have degraded Iraq's air defenses. But they said Iraq continues to maintain "integrated" air defenses using new technology acquired in spite of weapons sanctions and tactics to avoid detection and attack.

proved to be vital for providing a case for war that side-stepped the need for a second UN resolution: the so-called 'revival argument'. This relied on linking three UN resolutions: 678, which authorised the use of force in removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1990; 687, which set the ceasefire conditions at the end of the war in 1991, including the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction; and 1441, which threatened 'serious consequences' if those conditions were breached.

In his 7 March legal advice, Lord Goldsmith makes it clear that some British law officers believed that it was up to the Security Council, not individual states, to decide if Iraq was in breach of its obligations.

But Goldsmith discloses that he had fully taken on board the arguments made to him during his visit to Washington: 'The US have a rather different view: they maintain that the fact of whether Iraq is in breach is a matter of objective fact, which may therefore be assessed by individual member states. I am not aware of any other state which supports this view.'

The advice clarifies a second vital point: that the American legal advisers who drew up 1441 were convinced that it contained, in itself, the authorisation to use force against Saddam if he could be shown to have failed to disarm.

Goldsmith refers specifically to his meetings with the neo-cons and the effect the arguments that Taft and others had on him: 'I was impressed by the strength and sincerity of the views of the US administration which I heard in Washington on this point.'

Taft remains adamant that 1441 gave the US and Britain a legitimate trigger for the use of force. 'We were drafting the resolution having in mind that we might not get another one and we wanted, in the event of non-compliance [by Iraq], to allow our policy-makers to be in a position to do what they needed to do,' he said. 'There was an enormous fight. A draft resolution was tabled stating that the Security Council would have to take further action and this was not accepted.'

Taft is convinced that Goldsmith's final advice to Blair was correct under international law. 'I am still right there. The use of force was entirely lawful and authorised by the Security Council.'

THhe anger of defence officials

By the end of February 2003, more than 50,000 British troops had been sent to northern Kuwait preparing for an assault on Iraq if the order was given.

While the military strategy was going according to plan, back in the Ministry of Defence HQ, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the then Chief of Defence Staff, was growing increasingly impatient. Aware of the political debate raging on the legality of the war, he told the Prime Minister he would need 'black and white' legal cover before he ordered the troops in.

As The Observer revealed last March, it was Boyce's fears that soldiers might face prosecution for war crimes before the International Criminal Court that led to his demands for an 'unequivocal' two-line note from the Attorney General giving him the green light.

Boyce's clear demand for this unambiguous statement was transmitted to Goldsmith through the Prime Minister. Boyce's stance has emerged as a key factor in pushing Goldsmith to reconsider his final advice, which was presented to the Cabinet on 17 March and which removed many of his caveats in the 7 March document.

In an interview with The Observer, Boyce said: 'My requirement for legal "top cover" didn't start on 7 March; it started from the time we were getting troops in the area at the back end of February. It was obvious already there was quite a heavy debate going on that lent an air of uncertainty to our troops.

'My concern was that the troops should feel absolutely confident that what they were doing was absolutely black and white legally. So, well before 7 March, I made it clear to the Prime Minister that before we went in we would require legal top cover.'

Boyce said he never saw Goldsmith's 13-page full legal opinion of 7 March. 'I didn't see it ... it was not copied to me. My concerns weren't aroused or sparked by that, but by general concern.

'What the Attorney General didn't say was that it was illegal. It had caveats in it ... and some time between producing that piece of work on 7 March and his ultimate instruction or advice to Cabinet and Parliament and to me ... whatever things that were required to remove the caveats or to consider them to be not so important, I am not privy to. At the end of the day, he provided me with the unequivocal black-and-white advice that it was legal for us to go in.'

Yet in a remarkable admission, when asked if he believed he had finally received the necessary legal cover to protect him from a prosecution before the ICC, Boyce replies: ' No - I think I have done as best I can do. I have always been troubled by the ICC. Although I was reassured at the time when it [the decision to sign up to the ICC] was going through Whitehall about five years ago, I was patted on the head and told, don't worry: on the day it will be fine. I don't have 100 percent confidence in that.'

Goldsmith himself warned explicitly of the danger in his 7 March advice that such an attempted prosecution was a possibility. He stated: 'We cannot absolutely rule out that some state strongly opposed to military action might try to bring such a case. It is also possible that CND may try to bring further action to stop military action in the domestic courts. Two further possibilities are an attempted prosecution for murder on the grounds that the military action is unlawful and an attempted prosecution for the crime of aggression.'

Boyce reveals for the first time that part of his motive for insisting on legal assurance was to ensure that, should he or his soldiers face prosecution for the war, then his political masters would also be called to account. He said: 'My concerns were that, if my soldiers went to jail and I did, some other people would go with me - and that's what I had. I had a perfectly unambiguous black-and-white statement saying it would be legal to operate if we had to.'

Asked whether he meant by 'other people' Lord Goldsmith and Tony Blair he replied: 'Too bloody right!'

'I wanted to make sure we had this anchor that has been signed by the government law officer to show that at least we were operating under legal advice. It may not stop us from being charged, but, by God, it would make sure other people were brought in the frame as well.'

Blair's dark week

For nearly five million Britons, polling day came early this year. The ballot boxes may not open until 5 May, but the postal votes on which many of Labour's most marginal seats will be decided began dropping on to doormats last weekend. And somebody was ready for them.

Beneath the headline 'The proof Blair was told war could be illegal', last week's Mail on Sunday detailed the long-suspected, but never before confirmed, reservations and caveats of the Attorney General. The paper did not have the document itself, but had been read out enough authentic detail for Goldsmith to issue a statement admitting it was genuine.The Government's best kept secret was out - just as postal voters' pens were poised over their ballot papers.

Straw was hauled on to the Today programme on Monday for what one colleague called a 'painful' performance defending the legality of the war. For Straw personally, already struggling with an angry Muslim vote in his Blackburn constituency, it was the worst possible time to be thrust into an argument over Iraq.

The week stumbled from bad to worse. On Tuesday, it was announced that Brian Sedgemore, a veteran Labour MP, was defecting to the Lib Dems. The result was Tuesday's damning headlines, with Sedgemore accusing Blair of 'stomach-turning lies' over the war. It was the final encouragement Tory leader Michael Howard's team needed: the next morning, they launched their own poster accusing Blair of lying to go to war, and asking what else he might lie about to get re-elected.

Blair was in the middle of an interview for Sky on Wednesday, insisting he did not tell lies, when Channel 4 News began reporting an altogether more interesting story. It was another leak of the war advice: crucially, this time it and the Guardian had a copy of Goldsmith's summary - albeit handwritten to disguise the source. The crucial part of the document the government had fought for two years to conceal was now posted on a newspaper website for all to see.

Labour ministers are unanimous in blaming the Tories for having somehow orchestrated the first leak, even though Tory aides insist that is 'pure paranoia'.

It was the second hit that really lit the fuse. The Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, watching the news at home, shot to her computer to download the document she had never been shown - despite being in the cabinet. By the following morning, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, was being chased from a press conference by a reporter brandishing a copy of the advice and shouting: 'Do you want this? You haven't read it.'

The farce overshadowed the unfortunate fact that the full 13-page legal advice did not prove Howard's central charge. Admittedly, Goldsmith's conclusion, in paragraph 28, that 'a reasonable case can be made' for war without a second UN resolution was well short of a ringing endorsement, but neither did he say the war was unlawful. Blair had not lied when he said the Attorney General had ruled the war legal in the end - although he had omitted to mention that the definitive verdict was certainly not there as late as 7 March.

By the time Blair took the podium in the basement of the financial wire service Bloombergs' City office on Thursday morning, ostensibly to launch the party's business manifesto, it was clear there would be few questions about corporation tax. Blair angrily dismissed the leaked document as a 'damp squib': asked why, in that case, it shouldn't be published in full, he startled the audience by announcing it might as well since 'you have probably got it all anyway'.

But the crucial intervention came not from Blair, but from the man beside him. Asked if he, too, would have gone to war in Blair's position, Gordon Brown responded with a succinct: 'Yes.' The spontaneous applause came not from the bemused audience of businessmen, but from relieved Labour aides. Brown had passed up a golden chance to make personal capital out of the war - even though he could hardly have done otherwise in public. Hewitt, sharing the platform, could not resist exclaiming: 'Well done.'

Help also came from an unexpected source. At his morning press conference, Howard was asked whether - given the same legal advice - he, too, would have invaded, he confirmed he would. The logic of his position was crumbling.

On Thursday night, as the three leaders submitted to the David Dimbleby treatment on Question Time , Howard went still further, confirming he would have gone to war knowing there was no WMD. Saddam was still a threat, he said, and he favoured 'regime change-plus' - words anti-war voters love to hate.

When Howard asked the Question Time audience how many people thought Blair had told the truth on Iraq, few hands shot up. And yet his decision to 'go negative' on Blair's character now looks like an own goal: a Populus poll yesterday showed that almost half of voters were less likely to vote Tory as a result. Whatever people think of Blair, they apparently don't want to hear it from Howard.

The danger for Labour, however, comes not just from Howard. Charles Kennedy's stance on Iraq already puts him in pole position for anti-war votes: his mission now is to vacuum up floating voters, particularly women, who hate not the war, but the playground shrillness of debate about it.

His trick of hovering statesmanlike over the fray - Kennedy has criticised both Howard's choice of language and Blair's angry dismissal of the legal advice as a 'damp squib' - may be trickier to maintain given his own party's latest election broadcast, which caricatures the Prime Minister as the boy who cried wolf over WMD. But in about half a dozen seats, such as Islington South or Hornsey and Wood Green in London, Labour strategists admit that the furore over the legal advice could be enough to swing them Kennedy's way.

No wonder one minister, in a seat way down the Tories' hit list, is now writing two speeches for election night, one for winning and one for losing: 'It's undoubtedly close. Iraq, Blair and council tax are the three issues that keep coming up, and the answers I'm giving are not the sort that people want to hear.'

Others on the front line, however, insist that minds are already made up about the war, legal advice or no legal advice. 'If people are going to [vote against me] on the war, they tend to have been very definite from the start,' says one experienced Labour MP fighting a stiff Lib Dem challenge. 'They have had a couple of years to think about it, after all.'

There is, of course, an incentive for Labour to exaggerate the danger: if the election looks 'in the bag', as Alastair Campbell did not quite say last week, reluctant supporters will not bother to vote. A growing number of ministers are now arguing for an extended diet of humble pie, even if Labour is returned with a healthy majority. There must, they argue, be no triumphalism, and not just over Iraq: too many voters are angry and disillusioned about issues ranging from public services to immigration.

'If we get back with a reduced majority, we cannot have a scintilla of arrogance: he's got to show he's clocked it,' says one senior minister. Sedgemore's claims this weekend, in a GMTV interview, that 'hundreds' of MPs are poised to turn on the leader after the election are exaggerated, but his own mini-revolt is only one of several being planned on the left once the election is over.

There are threats of a stalking horse candidate running against Blair if he refuses to resign forthwith: Bob Marshall Andrews MP, the maverick left-winger, has publicly spoken of 'serious movements' to change the leader. A string of left-wing MPs, dutifully silent during the election, are planning speeches in the first two weeks of May, calling for a radical change of direction for the party.

Nonetheless, the threat of a revolt has been lessened by Brown and Blair's campaign rapprochement - and, in a shrunken parliamentary party, it may be uphill work to find the 82 MPs' signatures necessary for a coup. A majority of anything over 50, and Blair is probably safe: winning fewer than 209 seats, and Howard is not. But even a halved majority would rattle nerves.

One Blairite minister gloomily predicts 'a bloodbath' after polling day, as recriminations are traded between Brown and Blair camps for lost seats: 'This is the calm before the storm. I may be wrong, but I'm worried it will be the two sides back at it again.'

The young woman who stepped into Tony Blair's path as he finished his whirlwind tour of a nursing home in Risley, Northamptonshire, on Friday afternoon was nervous but emphatic. 'I just wanted to say, don't rise to the bait,' she told him, adding that she didn't want to get political but was upset by the tone of the Tory campaign.

Blair must now hope that Iraq, for all the damage it has done in the past week, is now finished business, at least for the rest of the campaign.

Today's revelations of the American meetings, the anger of Boyce and the faltering Labour lead in the polls will ensure that those around Blair continue to bite their nails as the last 96 hours of the campaign hove into view. Four days to go - four days during which Britain's longest serving Labour Prime Minister will wonder, as he races from town to town, speech to speech, interview to interview, if the result on 6 May is really in the bag.