"In response to it, the struggle has to be on every level and with every person. It is easy to forget just how deep and ongoing the struggle is."

The home secretary argued that at the core of the struggle was a battle of ideas and he called for the public, private and voluntary sectors to work with the government to "advance our values of guarded openness and liberty in defiance of the terrorist menace".

With regard to business involvement, he proposed setting up a new "innovation forum" to boost cooperative work between the different sectors.

"It is vital that our enterprises sustain the delivery of innovation at a pace that outstrips our adversaries," Reid told the conference organised by a technology company, Smiths Group.

He told business leaders that they played a vital role in creating the security and resilience required to defeat terrorism.

"I have accordingly asked the courts whether they can force ministers to answer questions properly," he said in making his application to the High Court in London.

The hearing will focus on the issue of whether the courts can, in principle, force ministers to answer questions, according to the parliamentary news service epolitix.com.

Hemming, who taught himself law, was arguing that while oral parliamentary questions form part of official proceedings and are immune from judicial review under the 1688 Bill of Rights, written ministerial answers to parliamentary questions are not.

In his evidence, he also pointed out that under the ministerial code, it is "of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament."
The Lib Dem MPs was expected to present a dossier he has collated as examples of questions badly answered which he is asking the court to examine.

He said that he has had to resort to the courts because neither the prime minister nor the cabinet secretary have dealt with the issues he has raised despite repeated requests.

"No, we did not 'toe the line,'" she said in reference to reports that Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown only backed the invasion after the prime minister threatened to otherwise sack him.

"We took the decision after much painful consideration and in good conscience on the basis of the evidence before us. And I believe it was the right decision," the foreign secretary told the Independent newspaper in response to readers' questions.

She declined to say whether she felt any sense of "guilt" about the tens of thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed as a consequence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but said that any death is of "immense concern."
Despite growing calls, including from military leaders, for withdrawal of British troops, Beckett still insisted that the UK's armed forces, currently numbering some 7,000, "will stay until the job is done" when Iraqis can take full responsibility for security.

Asked whether the invasion of Iraq will be judged as a success, she said that "no one can predict what judgment history will make about Iraq."
"But if we are able to put it back on its feet and to leave it with an elected government which is at the service of the people, that will be for the first time almost in living memory," she added.

In the interview, the foreign secretary also denied that she remained silent in the face of the Israeli regime's month-long bombardment of Lebanon in July, saying that she called "on every occasion for a cessation of hostitilies."
"We argue consistently to defend democracy and freedom in every part of the world," she also said in response to accusations of double standards in the UK's foreign policy.

Beckett, who suddenly replaced Jack Straw as foreign secretary in May, admitted that she did not expect to be appointed to the post and had resorted to the use of "less than diplomatic language out of sheer surprise" when she was told by Blair.

His warning came as the British government was seen risking defeat in the first substantial debate on the Iraq war since MPs narrowly supported deploying troops to joining the US-led invasion over three-and-a-half years.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Welsh Plaid Cymru were leading calls for a committee of seven senior MPs to review "the way in which the responsibilities of government were discharged in relation to Iraq" from the build-up and invasion in March 2003.

But in an amendment to the motion, the government appealed that there had already been four committees of inquiries already into various aspects related to the war and that it "declines at this time invasion" to set up an independent review panel.

At his daily briefing to domestic and foreign journalists, Blair's spokesman warned that an inquiry now would be seen by the enemy as a sign of weakness.

"Of course we continue to learn the lessons all the time and there is no doubt that at the end of our period there people will want to look back," he said.

The spokesman said that the time to deal with it "is then, not now." This, he warned, is "not a theoretical debate. It is a very real debate with very real consequences for our soldiers on the ground."
But opening the debate, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, who has led moves to impeach Blair over the Iraq war, said the issue was "not about revisiting old ground."
"It is an urgent attempt to restore the balance of power between Parliament and the executive; and of the utmost contemporary relevance if we are to prevent such tragedies from happening again," Price said.

SNP leader Alex Salmond said the vote "offers MPs a second chance to re-establish parliamentary accountability over an executive which has led the country into a bloody quagmire."
"If this motion carries - or indeed even if it records a substantial shift in opinion since the vote which took us to war - Mr Blair's time in Downing Street will be numbered in days, not weeks or months," Salmond said.

Reports suggested that the government was facing possible defeat due to the number of anti-war Labour MPs who were likely to support calls for a review unless Blair was able to reach a compromise.

The main opposition Conservatives indicated that some kind of face-saving deal may be in the offering in its amendment, calling for the review to start within a year after an expected major withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague has said that if such an inquiry was announced, the Conservatives would abstain from the crucial vote on setting up an immediate review, by that they would put the government "under increased pressure" if not.

"A responsible government should want all possible lessons to be learned from the efforts to bring order and reconstruction to Iraq, and should not be afraid of giving these issues the most searching examination," Hague said on BBC radio.

He distanced the Conservatives continuing support for the war, saying that whatever one's view about the rights and wrongs of the invasion of Iraq, it is "very important to learn about what's happened since then."
"Most of us supported the invasion of Iraq and many of us still consider it was the right thing to do... but this is a separate issue," the shadow foreign secretary said.

The Liberal Democrats, who have always opposed the war, also insisted that it was "entirely legitimate" to ask questions of ministers, without undermining troops' morale.

"We want to know that the government actually have a proper plan for Iraq that's got milestones, that's got benchmarks, that actually recognises we cannot be there indefinitely," the Lib Dems foreign affairs spokesman Michael Moore said.

"The US authorities responded to the failure of the current strategy by initiating the Baker review. The time has come for the British government to do the same," he added.