LONDON -- From the moment Tony Blair let it be known that he had decided to send troops to Iraq, his days of smooth government were over. The decision unleashed all the dark forces of suspicion and a sense of illegality that are usually contained by democratic institutions. As the prime minister battles through each crisis, like a small boat in rough seas, he may breathe a sigh of relief only to find himself tossed about by the next wave.
Now it is Britain's secret services. The charge that Britain's secret service, still known as MI6, bugged the office of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in the runup to the U.N. vote on Iraq, was made by MP Clare Short, the secretary of state for overseas development, a Cabinet post, who threatened to resign if Britain went to war without a second U.N. resolution in favor of war. She did resign a week into the war. She has since been seen as either seeking only her own footing, driven by the thirst for revenge against Blair; or as one seeking to re-establish her identity as a fearless truth seeker.
Though it matters to Labour MPs what her motive is (because it affects whether they should rally behind her spoken outrage, or cold-shoulder her as a traitor), to most people it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter because they take it as a matter of course that the British secret service spends its life creeping through the air ducts practicing secret surveillance. Indeed, the nefarious activities of the Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is officially called, make it the culprit of choice when bad things happen.