Blair faces Iraq insurgency at home

Blair faces growing revolt from lawmakers over troop deployment request.

Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a revolt by lawmakers Wednesday over a U.S. request to redeploy some British troops closer to Baghdad.

Forty-five lawmakers, all but one of them members of Blair's Labour Party, signed a motion demanding a vote in the House of Commons on whether the request should be granted. Many are suspicious the request is politically motivated and designed to bolster President Bush before presidential elections on Nov. 2.

Tony Blair claims it's all about the situation on the ground not the U.S. election in November.

"We are about to enter a period of increased activity in Iraq. This is nothing to do with the American elections," Blair told the House of Commons. "It has everything to do with the Iraqi elections in January."

But the British lawmakers aren't buying it.

Labour lawmaker Andrew Mackinlay, a loyal backbencher, warned Blair not to test the patience of his lawmakers, many of whom are still seething over the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"We have to say thus far and no further," Mackinlay said earlier Wednesday. "We have given 110 percent and I think they are just asking too much of us."

Tony Blair is finding out that being dubya's friend can be hazardous to your political health. Up to this point Blair has been very quite on the U.S. Election and in fact had refused a request to visit before November.