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Downing Street rejects diplomats' challenge, casts suspicion on BBC
A day after over 50 British diplomats released a letter condemning Tony Blair for blindly supporting US President "Boy" George W. Bush in his plans for US control of the Middle East and its oil resources, the Prime Minister's office has fired back with a blistering rejection of the accusation. In their letter the diplomats urged Mr Blair to start influencing what they called America's doomed policy in the Middle East or to stop backing it. They said they had "watched with deepening concern" as Britain followed the US lead in both Iraq and Israel.
Douglas Ramsbottom, a spokesman for Number 10, told reporters at a hastily-convened press conference late yesterday evening that the Prime Minister had indeed been able to influence Mr Bush's thinking in several key areas concerning the president's Middle East policy. He cited several examples, including:
Mr Blair successfully convinced Mr Bush that Argentina is not a Middle Eastern country in the generally-accepted definition of the term and therefore need not be invaded, at least not at present.
He also convinced the president, after much argument, that there is no case to be made for including Wales in the so-called axis of evil. Mr Bush continued to believe that it should so be designated until he was convinced, by being shown a school atlas, that Wales is not, as he believed, situated between Iraq and Iran. It should be noted that a representative of Plaid Cymru, while welcoming this and expressing gratitude to the Prime Minister, did want to put it on record that Wales could be pretty dangerous if it had to be.
Mr Blair persuaded the president that it would be unwise to suggest offering Norway as a homeland for the Palestinians on the grounds that the Norwegians would, in all likelihood, object, particularly if they had not first been consulted.
The PM tried to persuade his presidential colleague that a British company should be awarded a sub-contract to Halliburton to provide table napkins and those little paper salt and pepper containers to coalition troops in Iraq. Mr Bush is understood to have agreed to the napkins but stood firm that only 'good ol' US salt 'n' pepper' would be acceptable to US troops.
Mr Blair successfully dissuaded his US friend from sending Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder a parcel of "fake doggy doo-doo to teach 'em a lesson for not supporting us". Instead, the PM suggested a diplomatic response, which unfortunately was misunderstood and resulted in the French being called a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Mr Ramsbottom said that it is clear from these and other examples, which he said might be made available in a day or two, that Tony Blair has had a significant influence on Mr Bush. However, he went on note that in the view of Downing Street there was considerable doubt about the authenticity of the letter. "We checked the signatures and found that many of them appeared to be from the same hand, which we believe may be that of a former reporter at the BBC," he said, "and we've asked Lord Hutton to look into it."
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