Tony Blair's hopes of putting questions over Iraq behind him have suffered a fresh setback when the Conservative party withdrew support for a probe into the intelligence that sent the country to war.
Without support from the opposition, the inquiry -- set up last month to look into the quality of British intelligence on banned Iraqi weapons -- will give Blair little ammunition to silence his critics.
Blair's troubles worsened last week when prosecutors dropped a case against a spy services translator who leaked documents to try to stop the war, and when one of Blair's former cabinet members said Britain spied on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

On Monday Blair rejected calls to publish the government's secret pre-war advice on whether the war was legal.

Translator Katharine Gun, who admitted leaking documents, had said she planned to argue she was justified in breaking the law to prevent an illegal war, and would have demanded the government reveal its secret advice if her case went ahead.

Prosecutors dropped the case, saying they did not have enough evidence although she admitted breaking the law. Critics said the authorities feared putting the case before a jury.

The plot thickens.