Britain is ready to use nuclear strike 'in right conditions'

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, issued a veiled rebuke to his cabinet colleague Clare Short yesterday when he insisted that Britain was prepared to launch a nuclear strike on Iraq "in the right conditions".

Ms Short, the International Development Secretary, had declared on Friday that she could foresee no scenario in which a retaliatory nuclear strike would serve any useful purpose, even if Saddam Hussein used biological and chemical weapons.

But Mr Hoon told BBC's Breakfast with Frost that the Iraqi leader "can be absolutely confident" the UK was willing to use nuclear weapons "in conditions of extreme self- defence". The Defence Secretary said: "We have always made it clear that we would reserve the right to use nuclear weapons."

His remarks came as John Reid, the Labour Party chairman, became the first cabinet minister to hit back at Nelson Mandela's criticism of Tony Blair yesterday, claiming that the former South African president was "not infallible".

Mr Reid also declared that President Jacques Chirac would soon agree with Britain that a second UN resolution was essential to force Baghdad to disarm its weapons of mass destruction.

A possible split in the Labour Party was underlined yesterday when normally loyal Labour MPs said they would rebel if Britain took part in military action without a second resolution.

Mr Reid confirmed that Labour whips had been contacting backbenchers to gauge opposition to Britain's backing for a United States-led assault on Iraq. But he told the Politics Show on BBC1: "We have strained every muscle to go down the route of the UN, to bring in not only the European countries but the US itself. We want to see a second resolution – incidentally it's not the second – it's the 12th resolution.

In a reference to possible opposition by Russia or China, he said: "The only circumstances under which we would consider it legitimate to envisage military conflict without such a second resolution is if the inspectors themselves came back and said there has been a material breach, but for some national interest reason one country puts a veto on that."