Prime Minister Tony Blair was told the US had "brought forward" its plans to attack Iraq only hours before the strikes on Baghdad began, his office said yesterday.
Blair, Washington's key ally in the campaign to strip Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction, was "informed shortly after midnight that attacks on a limited number of command and control targets were being brought forward" his Downing Street office said.
The attacks with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs against a site near Baghdad began some two and a half hours later. Blair's office did not say who had informed the prime minister of the impending strikes.
"As regards the involvement of British forces, the prime minister will set out the position in due course," the spokesman added, on customary condition of anonymity.
Moments after the attack began, the Ministry of Defense in London said "at this time we are not aware of any air strikes on Iraq."
A British military spokesman at Camp As Sayliyah, the US Central Command post in the Gulf, said the British "were not expecting" the strike, and British officials had earlier briefed journalists in London not to expect any strikes overnight.
Anti-aircraft tracers flashed across the skies of Baghdad and explosions sounded in the city at dawn yesterday, less than two hours after US President George W. Bush's deadline expired for Saddam to leave Iraq or face war.
After the explosions began, Bush gave a televised address, saying strikes had begun "to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."
Britain is the only country to make a major military contribution to aid the US against Iraq, with some 45,000 troops deployed in the Persian Gulf.
Blair took the biggest gamble of his political career in backing military action against Iraq despite strong opposition within his party and the British population.
But this week he won a strong mandate from Parliament for military action to disarm Saddam and opinion polls show growing support for war. Anti-war protests have been small and scattered in recent days, contrasting with a massive march of up to one million people in London last month.
Blair made it clear yesterday that the overthrow of Saddam was now a major war aim.
"If the only means of achieving the disarmament of Iraq of weapons of mass destruction is the removal of the regime, then the removal of the regime has to be our objective," he told the House of Commons.
The Muslim Council of Britain condemned the outbreak of war and said it was a "black day in our history."
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