Another was brutally dismissive of the Prime Minister's attempt to "spray around policy initiatives" ahead of the party's annual conference in Manchester. "Tony is deluding himself if he thinks that anyone is listening to all this stuff."

Senior ministers were speaking last night of "near-panic" among MPs in marginal seats as Labour's poll ratings plunge because of the in-fighting.

One said that Mr Blair was being "self-indulgent" in seeking to bind the hands of his successor to ever-more radical reforms of the public services .

A group of senior ministers is determined at a meeting of a so-called "political Cabinet" next week to tell the Prime Minister to his face that he must give a clear timetable at the conference.

It will be the first time Mr Blair has met all his most senior colleagues since his controversial handling of the Lebanon conflict that led to near-mutiny.

His diminishing stock of political authority was laid bare when ministers such as Jack Straw and Douglas Alexander made clear their opposition to his hard-line stance.

Now he faces a full-scale revolt after suggesting that the "largest part" of those MPs who want him to go also desire a return to the beliefs and practices of "Old Labour".

The remark, made in his interview with The Times on Thursday, was described as an "outrageous slur" by one of Gordon Brown's key lieutenants. "Blair is doing the Tories' dirty work for them."

Mr Blair's allies tried to cool tempers yesterday by suggesting that the Prime Minister would announce his departure ahead of the Scottish, Welsh and English local authority elections in May.

But senior Labour MPs say they need a public commitment to a timetable at the party's conference or they will begin collecting support for a public call on Mr Blair to quit.

The fallout from his instruction to MPs to stop "obsessing" about his departure showed little signs of abating yesterday. He was dogged during a visit to Edinburgh by reporters' shouted questions on his exit plans.

And the internal battles convulsing Labour were set to intensify last night with fresh interventions from Ed Balls, Mr Brown's most trusted adviser on one side, and Alan Milburn, an ultra-Blairite, on the other.

Mr Balls is set to repeat his warning to Mr Blair that he must not make the mistake of Margaret Thatcher by staying too long in power.

Try this one, Don. Imagine that British occupation troops in, say, Hanover, had been forced to abandon a major base, under fire, and retreat into guerrilla operations in the Black Forest - in 1948, three years after the fall of the Nazi regime. And that as soon as the Brits made their undignified bug-out, the base had been devoured by looters while the local, Allies-backed authorities simply melted away and an extremist, virulently anti-Western militia moved into the power vacuum.

What would they have called that, Don? "Measurable progress on the road to democracy?" "Another achieved metric of our highly successful post-war plan?" Or would they have said, back in those more plain-spoken, Harry Truman days, that it was "a major defeat, a humiliating strategic reversal, foreshadowing a far greater disaster?"

You'd have to wait a long time - perhaps to the end of the "Long War" - to get a straight answer from Rumsfeld on that one, but this precise scenario, transposed from Lower Saxony to Maysan province, unfolded in Iraq last week, when British forces abandoned their base at Abu Naji and disappeared into the desert wastes and marshes along the Iranian border. The move was largely ignored by the American media, but the implications are enormous. The UK contingent of the invading coalition has always been the proverbial canary in the mine shaft: if they can't make a go of things in what we've long been told is the "secure south," where friendly Shiites hold absolute sway, then the entire misbegotten Bush-Blair enterprise is well and truly FUBAR.

The Queen's Royal Hussars, 1,200-strong, abruptly decamped from the three-year-old base last Thursday after taking constant mortar and missile fire for months from those same friendly Shiites. The move was touted as part of a long-planned, eventual turnover of security in the region to the Coalition-backed Iraqi central government, but there was just one problem: the Brits forgot to tell the Iraqis they were checking out early - and in a hurry.

"British forces evacuated the military headquarters without coordination with the Iraqi forces," Dhaffar Jabbar, spokesman for the Maysan governor, told Reuters on Thursday, as looters began moving into the camp in the wake of the British withdrawal. A unit of Iraqi government troops mutinied when told to keep order at the base - and instead attacked a military post of their own army. By Friday, the locals had torn the place to pieces, carting away more than $500,000 worth of equipment and fixtures that the British had left behind. After that initial, ineffectual show of force, the Iraqi "authorities" stepped aside and watched helplessly as the looters taunted them and cheered the "great victory" over the Western invaders.

The largely notional - if not fictional - power of the Baghdad central government simply vanished while the forces of hardline cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which already controls the local government, stepped forward to proclaim its triumph and guide the victory celebrations in the nearby provincial capital, Amarah. "This is the first city that has kicked out the occupier!" blared Sadr-supplied loudspeakers to streets filled with revelers, as the Washington Post noted in a solid - but deeply buried - story on the retreat.

British officials were understandably a bit sniffy about the humiliation. First, they denied there was any problem with the handover at all: the Iraqis had been notified (a whole 24 hours in advance, apparently), the exchange of authority was brisk and efficient, and the Iraqis had "secured the base," military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge insisted to AP. But when reports of the looting at Abu Naji began pouring in, British officers simply washed their hands of the nasty business. The camp was now "the property of the Maysan authorities and Iraqi Forces [are] in attendance," said Burbridge; therefore, Her Majesty's military would have no more comment on the matter. In this casual - not to mention callous - dismissal of the chaos spawned in wake of the Hussars' departure, we can see in miniature the philosophy now being writ large across the country in the Bush administration's "Iraqization" policy: "We broke it; you fix it."

And where are Her Majesty's Hussars now? Six hundred of them have dispersed into guerrilla bands in the wilderness, where they will survive on helicopter drops of supplies while they patrol the Iranian border. The ostensible reason behind this extraordinary operation is two-fold, said the doughty Burbridge: first, to find out if the Bush administration is up to its usual mendacious hijinks in claiming that the evildoers in Iran are fuelling the insurgency among the happily liberated Iraqi people; and second, to do a little more of that Iraqization window dressing before finally getting the hell out of Dodge completely, beginning sometime next year, according to reports across the UK media spectrum.

Of course, the good major didn't put it quite like that. "The Americans believe there is an inflow of IEDs and weapons across the border with Iran," he told the Post. "Our first objective is to go and find out if that is the case. If that is true, we'll be able to disrupt the flow." The second aim is training Iraqi border guards, he added.

Yes, a few hundred men wandering through the wasteland, dependent on air-dropped rations, will certainly be able to seal off an almost 300-mile border riddled with centuries-old smuggling routes. And modern-day Desert Rats rolling up in bristling Land Rovers to isolated villages where Shiite clans span both borders will no doubt be gathering a lot of actionable intelligence from the locals. And of course it is much easier to "train Iraqi border guards" on the fly in the wild than at a long-established base with full amenities and, er, training facilities.

In other words, the British move makes no sense - if you accept the official spin at face value, i.e., that it's an act of careful deliberation aimed at furthering the Coalition's stated goals of a free, secure, democratic Iraq. But those in the reality-based community will see it for what it is: a panicky, patchwork reaction to events and forces far beyond the Coalition's intentions or control.

The other six hundred Hussars driven out of Abu Naji have retreated to the main British camp at Basra - another "safe" city that has now degenerated into a level of violence approaching the hellish chaos of Baghdad, the Independent reports. British troops who once walked the streets freely, lightly armed, wearing red berets instead of helmets, are now largely confined to the base, except for excursions to help Iraqi government forces in pitched battles against the Shiite militias that control the city. Harsh religious rule has long descended on the once freewheeling port city, again presaging the sectarian darkness now settling heavily across Baghdad.

Just a few months ago, the UK's Ministry of Defence was churning out "good news" PR stories about life at Abu Naji - such as the whimsical tale of the troop's pet goat, Ben, a lovable rogue always getting into scrapes with the regiment's crusty sergeant major, even though the soldiers "knew he had a soft spot for Ben." The goat, we were told, had enjoyed visits from such distinguished guests as the Iraqi prime minister and the Duke of Kent. Now this supposed oasis of British power has been destroyed, with the Coalition-trained Iraqi troops meant to secure it either fading into the shadows or actively joining in with the rampaging crowds and extremist militias. Meanwhile, the Hussars are reducing to roaming the countryside on vague, pointless, impossible missions, killing time, killing people - and being killed - until the inevitable collapse of the whole shebang.

The goat is gone. The canary is dying. The surrender and sack of Abu Naji is a preview of what's to come, on a much larger scale of death and chaos, as the bloodsoaked folly of Bush and Blair's war howls toward its miserable end.

--------

Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His work has appeared in print and online in venues all over the world, including The Nation, CounterPunch, Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Il Manifesto, the Moscow Times and many others. He is the author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, and is co-founder and editor of the "Empire Burlesque" political blog. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.

Mr Blair defended the need for state intervention and said action could even be taken "pre-birth" if necessary as families with drug and alcohol problems were being identified too late.

"If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children that are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional, and the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves," he told BBC News. There could be sanctions for parents who refused to take advice, he added.

Mr Blair's uncompromising remarks in a BBC interview come after the Guardian revealed earlier this week full details of his wide-ranging plans for tackling social exclusion.

The package, worked out at a Chequers summit meeting with ministers and leading agencies such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Turning Point, covers ideas on children in care, teenage mothers and mentally ill people on benefit - those who have been "difficult to reach" in previous government programmes.

The prime minister will set out his plans in a speech next Tuesday, but it his trenchant language in his first broadcast interview since returning from holiday which is certain to stir controversy.

He admitted many people might be uneasy with the idea of intervening in people's family life but said there was no point "pussy-footing".

Official figures released in February showed the conception rate for girls aged 13-15 was 7.5 per 1,000 in 2004. Ministers are looking at new strategies to curb teenage pregnancy and compulsory 12-week programmes for vulnerable young parents to improve their skills bringing up children.

The leader of the government's Respect taskforce, Louise Casey, is a strong advocate of parenting classes for people whose children behave antisocially.

The radical proposal is believed to have come out of that meeting at Chequers and a government policy paper on the issue is due to be published soon.

While help had to be offered, Mr Blair said, "some sense of discipline and responsibility" had to be brought to bear. "You either steer clear and say that's not for government to get into, in which case you don't deal with the problem. Or, and this is really what I'm saying, I think we need to deal with these particular issues and we actually do intervene and we intervene at a very early stage.

"If you've got someone who is a teenage mum, not married, not in a stable relationship ... here is the support we are prepared to offer you, but we do need to keep a careful watch on you and how your situation is developing because all the indicators are that your type of situation can lead to problems in the future," he said.

The Conservatives have objected to this course, saying the government should not try to run people's lives.

Conservative policy director Oliver Letwin said: "The answer is not more state intervention. It is to encourage the social enterprise, the voluntary sector, community groups, to help people without trying to run their lives for them."

One thinktank suggested it was almost "genetic determinism" to suggest children could turn out to be troublemakers before they were born.

Norman Lamb, chief of staff to Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said: "Empty threats to pregnant mothers will do little to restore confidence in a government that has failed to tackle poverty, crime and social exclusion for the last nine years."

Mrs Hamilton-Bing was out shopping with her husband, Rob, when live images of the Lynx helicopter crash were broadcast across the world from Basra.

Frozen to the spot, they stared at the images of soldiers battling rioters, knowing that somewhere in that violent melee was their teenage son.

"We just got in the car. We couldn't get home fast enough and sat glued to the television. We just wanted to catch a glimpse of him, to know he was alive," said Mrs Hamilton-Bing, 43.

Unaware that her son was in fact inside the burning Warrior armoured vehicle on their screen, she tried to call his mobile throughout the day until they finally spoke:

"He said, 'That was me Mum, that was my wagon that was alight'. You have to remain calm but inside you are screaming and crying," she explained.

Mrs Hamilton-Bing insists that she is part of a majority vehemently against the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, who believe the forces have been over-stretched, and treated like "mercenaries" for hire by a dishonest Prime Minister.

She believes that she is only reflecting the views of the servicemen and women who say nothing because they acknowledge that they relinquished that right when they signed up and "took the Queen's shilling".

"People just see these big strapping lads going off to war and these strong people waiting behind. It is a façade," she said.

On Thursday Mrs Hamilton watched her son, Pte James Hamilton-Bing, 18, of the 1st Battalion, The Light Infantry, return to Basra after his leave, knowing full well that in his previous four months in Iraq he has endured nightly mortar attacks, riots, countless fire fights and watched a comrade die. Perhaps worse are the things he would not talk about. The first time she watched his father drive him off to the airport on his way to Iraq in April the normally relaxed lecturer - a military daughter and a military wife - disintegrated. "I couldn't walk. My legs would not carry me. I was like jelly. I just sat and cried. It was self-pity. I couldn't be bothered to get dressed, to eat. I was quite horrid and uncaring to [my 12-year-old daughter] Chloe. I didn't appreciate how she was dealing with it," she explained.

After her own mother declared that she had two choices - dissolve into a nervous wreck or channel her grief - she decided to set up a support network for families and was stunned by the response. She received calls from women just streets away and others half-way across the world. Today the Iraq families are being joined by those whose relatives have been deployed to Afghanistan.

"Nobody believes what the Government says. Nine out of 10 agree with me," she said, adding: "There is a general feeling of two steps forward, one step back all the time. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight."

Like them, she now has rituals for coping. The telephone never leaves her side. The family do not go out together in case a call comes in. Her son's bedroom is left exactly as it was the day he walked out. "When he went his bed was left as he had got out of it that morning. I would not clear it up in case he didn't come back."

The other day she found herself accosting a woman who was yelling at her young son in the supermarket. "I said, 'I don't want to be rude but can you not speak to your son like that? My son is 18 and he is in Basra. Just appreciate your son. My son could be dead any day and you are worrying over a bag of sweets'."

Over the months she has listened to the change in her teenage soldier. Initially enthusiastic, his phone calls home began to change. He stopped talking of peacekeeping and began describing deadly battles in the "hell hole". He sounded exhausted.

"They don't have enough resources. They are over-stretched. Everyone is doing two men's jobs. Every time I spoke to him he was dead on his feet. He could barely say 'yeah' on the phone."

The worst moment came when the Lebanon conflict was dominating the news, she explained: "He said, 'People have forgotten about us, Mum. We are doing this shitty job, doing our best and they have forgotten about us'. That cut me to the quick."

Mrs Hamilton-Bing admits she was fiercely proud when her son joined the Army at just 16. In their home county of Cornwall, it offered a far better career than joining the tourism or building trade. It was not until she was listening to the local news one day that she realised that the "Op Telic" training he was undergoing meant he was off to Iraq.

"I am not against war, just an illegal war. I can't understand why we are there. I want to know why we needed a UN mandate of nine out of 15 and we went in with just four. Maybe if Tony Blair tried to tell me I would understand better," she said.

But they said the arrests were not linked to the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks that killed 56, including the four British Islamist extremist bombers.

Nor was it connected to the massive August 10 counter-terrorism operation against an alleged plot to blow up US-bound aircraft that led to more than two dozen arrests and unprecedented security measures at airports worldwide.

Those arrested, aged between 17 and 48, were being grilled at the high-security Paddington Green police station in central London. Home Secretary John Reid was being kept fully informed.

According to Britain's domestic Press Association (PA) news agency, the men were thought to be mainly young British Muslims of Pakistani origin.

Searches were taking place at unspecified locations in north, east and south London, but one at the Jameah Islamiyeh school in the village of Mark Cross in Sussex, south of London, was attracting particular attention.

It was reported last week that the site was once booked for a weekend by radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza and his followers.

Egyptian-born Hamza, the one-eyed, hook-handed former imam of the once-extremist Finsbury Park mosque in north London, was jailed for eight years earlier this year for soliciting to murder and race-hate crimes.

The 900-pound (1,300-euro, 1700-dollar) a year school is independently run and provides an Islamic education for Muslim boys aged 11 to 15.

Sussex Police said no arrests had been made there but the search could take "days, possibly weeks."

According to British school inspectors Ofsted, which assessed its running in December last year, there were only nine boys on its books. It also concluded that the school "does not provide a satisfactory education for its pupils."

Among its criticisms was the fact that the "curriculum is not broad and balanced... the quality of teaching remains unsatisfactory."

There was no answer from the school when contacted by AFP on Saturday.

Meanwhile, police in Manchester, northwest England, said the arrest of two men there at 6:00 am (0500 GMT) Saturday under the Terrorism Act 2000 was also not connected to events in the capital.

According to the BBC, 12 of the suspects were detained in the Borough area of inner south London at a halal Chinese restaurant, The Bridge to China Town, which is popular with the local Muslim community.

It is situated above a Persian restaurant, the Iran e Ma, which is also thought to have been searched.

Of the two others, one was arrested in east London while the location of the last was not specified.

The arrests came after it was revealed in an interview recorded in July and to be broadcast Sunday that the head of the Met's Anti-Terrorist Branch said thousands of British Muslims were under surveillance for direct or indirect involvement in terrorism.

Peter Clarke also told the BBC documentary that the security services were particularly concerned by the links forged between British citizens of Pakistani descent and militants in the land of their parents or grandparents.

Many young British Muslims with Pakistani backgrounds travel to Pakistan to visit relatives or attend "religious" camps where they may be targeted by extremists.

Two of the July 7 bombers were allegedly trained in explosives during one such visit.

An unnamed security source quoted by PA said there was no evidence of any imminent attack and it was not yet clear if the men were part of one group or a number.

Police have not revealed what prompted them to act overnight.

Twelve RAF personnel, a Royal Marine and a British Army soldier were killed.

The crash brings the number of British armed forces personnel deaths in Afghanistan since the start of operations against the hardline Taliban regime in 2001 to 36, including 15 in combat.

Six soldiers were killed last month alone and the steadily rising death toll has left some questioning the mission and wondering how much longer Britain can tolerate such losses.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the crash was a "tragedy" which would "distress the whole country".

"British forces are engaged in a vital mission in Afghanistan and this terrible event starkly reminds us of the risk that they face daily," he said.

Britain has nearly 4,000 troops in Helmand as part of a NATO-led force working to bring security to the restive southern province.

With a sizeable British presence also in Iraq, accusations -- denied by the government and military top brass -- have mounted in recent months that troops are overstretched and ill-equipped.

Brigadier Ed Butler, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the recent spike in deaths had caused "profound personal devastation" among families, friends and colleagues.

"Notwithstanding today's accident, and other losses suffered so far, the resilience, morale, and bearing of our servicemen and women is quite remarkable," he said.

"I am humbled by their courage and commitment in getting on with the tough job in hand; delivering over and above, and making a difference to the ordinary people of Afghanistan."

Defence expert Major Charles Heyman said the crash would inevitably cause military and political problems for Blair's government.

"It's always going to have an effect on domestic public opinion: people are going to say, 'what are our troops doing there?'," the military analyst said.

"Overall, it begins to look like an unlucky operation.

"These soldiers are the finest infantry in the world, but they will look at each other and say 'who's next?.'"

He said Pakistani contacts told him "the hills are crawling with well-armed and well-trained Taliban".

"Given this fact, the government has two options: massive reinforcement or order them to withdraw."

The latest deaths come just a day after a Fijian British Army soldier died fighting militants loyal to the deposed Taliban regime in Helmand.

Britain's Defence Secretary Des Browne called the crash "dreadful and shocking news".

He said work was ongoing to secure the site of the crash.

"All the indications are that this was a terrible accident and not the result of hostile action," he added.

"This tragic incident should serve to remind us all of the risks the British military shoulder on all our behalf across the world every day."

French President Jacques Chirac expressed his "deep emotion" to Blair in a letter. He also voiced his "solidarity in adversity".

Lieutenant General David Richards, the British general in charge of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said they had set themselves a six-month deadline to establish a clear advantage over Taliban insurgents, in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper published earlier Saturday.