'No planning' for Iran attack, says Blair

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on Thursday there was "no planning" under way for an attack on Iran, while defending his record on Iraq after announcing a major troop withdrawal.   

Asked in a BBC radio interview whether an attack against Iran was inconceivable, he said that nobody was preparing for military action and that he did not think such a course would be right.   

"You can't absolutely predict every set of circumstances that comes about but sitting here now talking to you, I can tell you Iran is not Iraq," he said.   

"There is, as far as I know, no planning going on to make an attack on Iran and people are pursuing a diplomatic and political solution for a good reason -- that it is the only solution that anyone can think of as viable and sensible."   

He added that he knew of "nobody" in Washington who was planning for a military attack and denied that President George W. Bush's administration was encouraging Israel to strike.   

But Blair also seemed to qualify his remarks by saying: "I personally think that you will never have a situation where you simply say there are no set of circumstances in which you could ever conceive of anything".   

On Wednesday, Blair announced that the number of British troops in Iraq would be cut by 1,600 to 5,500 in the next couple of months.   

Further reductions are likely later in the year to take the British presence below 5,000, despite the United States' policy of "surging" 21,500 extra troops to Iraq announced in January.   

Asked if he would be prepared to send support troops in Iraq back to frontline duties if need be, Blair confirmed that this was possible, though he did not anticipate it would be necessary.   

"We have the full combat capability that's there so if we're needed to go back in in any set of circumstances, we can," he said.   

"The whole purpose of being in a support role is precisely to do that."   

He accepted there was currently a "grim situation" in Iraq but defended efforts to reestablish law and order after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.   

Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special representative in Baghdad and ex-British ambassador to the United Nations, has said Blair took his "eye off the ball" after the 2003 invasion.   

Blair said he did not accept that he had failed to plan sufficiently over security.   

"I agree it's very difficult but I can't take responsibility myself for the people who are sending car bombs into a market place and killing innocent people," Blair told the BBC.   

The "principal reason" for problems in Iraq was the actions of extremists, he added. He also derided as a "conspiracy theory" the view that Britain and the US had decided to go to war in Iraq long before seeking United Nations approval.   

"I was there...and I can assure you that the idea that there had been a sort of irreversible decision taken there is one of these conspiracy theories," he said. 

But Blair did accept that his was an "interventionist" view of foreign policy.   

"My view is that the only way you protect your security today is to go out after this threat in alliance with others and try and deal with it," he said.