UK News 02-10-2001 Blair Tells Taliban To Prepare For War who: Tony Blair what: Tells Labour Conference delegates that time has run out for Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden where: BRIGHTON when: Today snippet: "Tony Blair will say that Taliban rulers have had their chance to surrender Osama bin Laden and military strikes will begin in Afghanistan," reports The Evening Standard as the prime minister prepares to give a hawkish speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton this afternoon. While acknowledging that British people are "anxious", he will state that the ultimatum to the Taliban has expired and that the response will be to "eliminate their hardware, disrupt their supplies, target their troops." Mr Blair wrote the entire first draft of the 8,000 word speech himself, reports Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun, making him "the first PM since Tory wartime leader Winston Churchill to present his own words to a party conference." "About half the speech will be devoted to domestic policy," says Andrew Grice, political editor of The Independent, "because Mr Blair has told Cabinet colleagues he does not want to `take his eye off the ball` in Britain during the international crisis." In The Telegraph, Robert Harris complains that Mr Blair is acting like a President, "with a legislature that barely merits consultation" while George W Bush has surprised his critics by acting as the first among a cabinet of powerful equals and has treated Congress with due respect. Nevertheless, in today`s leader, The Times says it is as clear in Brighton as it is in Washington DC that "the dangers of inaction now outweigh the risks." [... more]

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