British Prime Minister Tony Blair flies to the US on Thursday for one of his most important summits with George Bush, which received added impetus on Wednesday night when an Italian hostage was brutally killed by his Iraqi captors.
The television station al-Jazeera was sent a video showing security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi (36) from Genoa, being killed with a shot to the back of the head. He had been sitting with three other Italian hostages in front of an open grave.
The kidnappers blamed Italy’s refusal to withdraw its troops for the killing. A spokesperson for al-Jazeera told Reuters: ”The group threatened to kill the three other hostages, one after the other if their demands were not met.”
The Italian security guards, three of whom were working for a US-based company, were abducted on Monday.
Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, confirmed the killing on television early on Thursday morning. He said Quattrocchi, a former infantry soldier, had told his mother he was going to Kosovo so as not to alarm her.
A US official said on Tuesday there were up to 40 foreigners being held hostage in Iraq.
The upsurge of violence in Iraq has caused growing frustration in Whitehall over the heavy-handed tactics of American forces.
Before tackling the growing tensions with Bush, the prime minister, in a symbolic move, will stop off in New York tonight for dinner with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, who was sidelined during last year’s war.
Downing Street wants to win UN blessing — in the form of a fresh security council resolution — for the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty by June 30 in the hope that this will persuade the French and the Germans to send troops.
Blair hopes his dinner with Annan will produce a draft of a resolution, which could give the UN the power to hold elections in Iraq within a year after the handover. The prime minister will take this to the White House for tomorrow’s summit with Bush.
”People are reasonably optimistic about [a resolution] which would mean an enhanced role for the UN,” one government source said.
But British officials insisted last night that the prime minister would not criti cise US forces, who have been widely censured for overreacting to violence in Falluja.
But senior diplomatic and military sources in Whitehall are exasperated by the developments. ”The Americans were too brutal; they would have been better off trying a different approach,” a well-placed Whitehall source said on Wednesday. A senior defence official agreed: ”We are culturally different from the US. We would have done things differently.”
Irritation has been simmering since Paul Bremer, the Iraqi administrator, on instructions from Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army last May. ”There was definitely a difference of view,” a Whitehall source said on Wednesday. ”If you remove the instruments of law and order, the army and the police, what do you have left to try and govern with?”
Blair will put such doubts behind him as he and the president try to ram home the message that they are working together in the war against terrorism, which goes beyond Iraq. But the prime minister, who believes Arabs will never be won over unless Britain and the US are seen to be even-handed towards the Middle East, suffered a setback last night when Bush endorsed Ariel Sharon’s unilateral plans.
A row over the role of British intelligence in the run up to the September 11 attacks highlighted how fragile Anglo-US relations could be. Counter-terrorist officials yesterday described as ”rubbish” claims by a Washington commission that UK intelligence could have helped disrupt the attacks.
Blair and the Democratic presidential contender, John Kerry, will be ”too busy” to meet during the prime minister’s trip. While Blair is New York today, Kerry will be in the city meeting Hillary Clinton. Party sources said this reflected unprecedented coolness in Labour-Democrat relations. – Guardian Unlimited Â