Bush's foreign policy has failed, says UK minister

Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who is bidding to become deputy leader of the ruling Labour Party, launched a scathing attack this week on US President George W. Bush's "failed" foreign policy.

"It's not only failed to provide a coherent international policy, it's failed wherever it's been tried, and it's failed with the American electorate, who kicked it into touch last November," Hain said in an interview with the New Statesman magazine.

His criticism published Thursday comes amid reports that a growing number of ministers believe that Labor will have to admit serious errors have been made over the war in Iraq if it is to restore public trust in the government after Prime Minister Tony Blair retires this year.

Hain, who has been criticized himself previously for abandoning his left-wing principles, described the US government as the "most right-wing" in living memory.

"If neo-con unilateralism has damaged the fight against global terrorism and taken the world's eyes off the ball of solving the Middle East conflict, for example, we've got to really get back on that agenda," he warned.

Labor's international achievements, like trebling aid to Africa or leading the fight for trade justice and lifting billions in debt off poorest countries were "all of these things people have forgotten about because of the Iraq conflict," the minister said.

He suggested that the problem of government, which he has been a member of since Blair came to power in 1997, was "actually to maintain a working relationship with what was the most right-wing American administration." Hain suggested that the defeat of the Republicans in the US mid- term elections last year provided prime minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown, the current chancellor, with a historic opportunity to disown Blair's neo-conservatives allies and embrace the Democrats.

"Our sister party is the Democratic Party, so for me the results in November were fantastic," he said pointing to Labor's traditional US allies.

Hain, who is a former Foreign Office minister, is one of several candidates competing to become Brown's deputy when Blair steps down from power.

According to the Guardian newspaper Thursday, there is a growing impetus for Labor to show contrition, especially over the string of errors made in Iraq.

It suggested that an acknowledgment of the serious mistakes made may come when Brown takes over, possibly by launching an inquiry into the conduct of the Iraq war, which Blair has always refused.