UK News 11-10-2001 Kick Ass Blair Reveals War "Bible" who: Tony Blair what: Begins Middle East mission with speech to troops where: Oman when: Yesterday snippet: "Tony Blair revealed yesterday a sweeping vision for the future of Afghanistan," says The Telegraph, "that includes replacing the Kabul regime with a broad-based government and rebuilding the country with the long-term help of the international community." On his third diplomatic mission of the crisis, Mr Blair was in Oman where he met with ruler Sultan Quboos and visited some of the 22,000 British troops on exercise there. "He was greeted with typical forces humour," writes Tom Newton Dunn in The Mirror, "by RAF corporal Kevin Lee wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Saddam Hussein being booted and the words `We came, we saw, we kicked ass` on it." The reason "[we] ask you to put your lives at risk" is "to fight for a sense of justice", he said in a speech to hundreds of servicemen and women, to defend democracy rather than "let the extremists, the terrorists, the fanatics, determine our fate." Mr Blair surprised the press by revealing a strategy document which sets out the immediate and medium-term objectives of the military action, says The Guardian. The ultimate aim of the so-called "strategy bible" will be "the reintegration of Afghanistan into the international community and an end to its self-imposed isolation". [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!