British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah by U.S. forces as essential if elections are to be held in January as planned. "We have to hold firm, be resolute and see this through, including in Fallujah," he told parliament. The attack would stop "immediately if the terrorists and insurgents who are using Fallujah as a base for terrorism would lay down their weapons to agree to participate in elections. "They have refused not because they are fighting a foreign occupation - if the terrorism stopped, American, British and other troops would leave Iraq - but because they are fighting democracy." However, Blair faced tough criticism in parliament following the deaths of three British soldiers of the Black Watch regiment, part of a detachment taking over from U.S. troops south of Baghdad. Anti-war backbencher Alice Mahon of Blair's Labour Party asked whether an Iraqi city would be bombed every month if the attack failed "until all we have left in Iraq is rubble and hatred". Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said there were real concerns about possible civilian casualties, and it was "essential" that U.S. troops did not "squander moral capital which in turn undermines the legitimacy of (the) democratic process". --SP 2307 Local Time 2007 GMT
