British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday made the final public breach with Clare Short when he branded his erstwhile Cabinet colleague a liar for claiming that he made a "secret agreement" with George Bush as long ago as last September to wage war on Iraq.
As opposition politicians and dissident Labour members of parliament piled the pressure on the government, the prime minister discarded his usual references to "Clare" to say that allegations by "Clare Short" were "completely and totally untrue."
Speaking at a sweaty press conference in Evian, France, Blair snapped that "charges should have evidence and there is none" before he denounced "so-called anonymous sources" who have briefed against the government.
Sweeping aside calls for a public inquiry, Blair angrily tried to clamp the drip-feed of allegations that he deceived ministers over Iraq's banned weapons by appealing to critics to "just have a little patience" until a full inspection and report have been completed.
Blair stands "100 percent behind the evidence, based on intelligence, that we presented to people."
"The idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability of delivering WMD, the idea that we doctored such intelligence is completely and totally false," he said.
Then came the stroke which severed his personal ties with Short, an ally over aid and Africa.
Blair is sticking his neck out what inspection teams eventually find -- or do not find -- in Iraq.
The prime minister's tough language came as his political opponents joined forces with Labour dissidents to exploit his difficulties over the failure to uncover banned weapons. Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said: "In the history of Labour party fighting this is going to be as bitter as some of the left-right splits that ultimately produced the SDP. It used to be that Labour ministers kept their venom for their memoirs. It now seems that some can't wait that long."
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