The Guardian, Tony Blair came under attack from two of the Church of England's most senior figures yesterday for acting “like a white vigilante” and for lacking humility in forging ahead with the war on Iraq.
In the most outspoken outburst, the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, accused religious conservatives surrounding the US president, George Bush, of espousing “a very strange distortion of Christianity” – particularly since, through Iraq's reconstruction, many would gain financially.
“For Bush and Blair to go into Iraq together was like a bunch of white vigilantes going into Brixton to stop drug dealing. This is not to deny there's a problem to be sorted, just that they are not credible people to deal with it,” he said.
In a separate rebuke, the Archbishop of York, David Hope, questioned the legitimacy of the war and said Mr Blair would have to answer to God – a “higher authority” – for his decision to forge ahead with the conflict.
He called on people to pray for Mr Blair and called on him to show more humility rather than exercising power in an authoritarian way. Referring to Iraq, he said: “One of the qualities of a good leader is that they have to be really attentive to the views of the people. It seemed at one stage that that was not happening.”
The conflict, and the events leading up to it, had raised questions of leadership and trust.
Referring to Iraq, he said: “We still have not found any weapons of mass destruction anywhere. Are we likely to find any? Does that alter the view as to whether we really ought to have mounted the invasion or not?
“Undoubtedly, a very wicked leader has been removed, but there are wicked leaders in other parts of the world.”
Dr Hope went on to call on Britons to “spend more time praying for Tony Blair”, who should exercise a “calm, quiet authority”.
The coalition leaders would have to give an account to a “a higher authority,” he added, in an echo of the warning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at the Iraq war remembrance service, that Mr Blair would be “called to account.”
Downing Street last night refused to be drawn on the church leaders' attacks, made in the Independent and the Times respectively. But the rebukes are likely to rankle with the prime minister, a devout Christian, who recently declared he was ready “to meet my maker” and answer for his decisions on Iraq.
While Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's former director of communications, forbade Mr Blair from speaking about his faith, and Mr Blair has sidestepped questions about whether he has prayed with Mr Bush at war summits, faith forms a strong part of the prime minister's psyche.
He confessed in an interview conducted during the Iraq war that he had wanted to end a televised statement before British troops went into Iraq with the phrase “God bless you”, but was dissuaded by officials.
The former foreign secretary Robin Cook yesterday said it was time for Mr Blair to drop his claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “It really is time that the prime minister accepted that himself,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. “It is undignified to continue to insist he was right when everyone can see he was wrong.”
