A former British minister who resigned over the war on Iraq launched a new attack on Prime Minister Tony Blair, describing him as an "emperor" and a "neo-Conservative" and blaming his government for an "abuse of power" which helped push a leading arms specialist to suicide.

Former British minister, Clare Short, who resigned over the war on Iraq, has launched a new attack on Prime Minister Tony Blair describing him as an "emperor" and a "neo-Conservative" and blaming his government for an "abuse of power" which helped push a leading arms specialist to suicide. (AFP/Gerry Penny)

Blair was "a complete convert to the neo-Conservative view of the world" espoused by the hardliners behind US President George W. Bush, Clare Short said in an interview with Monday's edition of the newspaper The Independent.

She said the death on July 18 of David Kelly, an arms specialist who had been embroiled in the controversy over whether the former Iraqi regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, had been at least partially caused by the government.

Kelly is presumed to have committed suicide after he was named as a source in a BBC news story.

"We must deal with Dr Kelly, and the abuse of power that helped drive him to his death. But we must also deal with the questions of how we went to war in Iraq and how much half-truth and deceit there was on the way," said Short, who resigned as international development secretary in April, after the start of the war on Iraq.

She said that the independent inquiry which is being held into Kelly's death should lead to resignations from the government.

"The truth needs to be found and those responsible need to be held to account. Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair work very, very closely together. They are all implicated, it seems to me," she said, referring to Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell.

Earlier this month, Short called on Blair himself to resign.

"I think it would be in the interests of Tony Blair himself and his legacy of the Labour Party, and actually of the country, if he would think of making a voluntary departure and we could have an elegant handover and Labour could renew itself in power," she said in a television interview on July 13.

In the new interview, Short said that the general public no longer trusted the government.

"Public confidence has changed enormously. It has deepened the sense there is something wrong in the way in which No 10 is run. There is more scrutiny of that, so that affects Tony Blair's reputation," she said.

The former minister also accused Blair of lying about the position of Jacques Chirac, the French president, in the run-up to the war.

"Tony said to me, 'The French have said they will veto anything', so I was misled about the French position. We were all misled. Objectively, if things are not true, they are a lie," she told the newspaper.

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