Why am I not surprised... The United States will not support a ban on the use of cluster munitions, a State Department spokesman said after 46 countries agreed to push for a worldwide ban at a UN conference in Norway Friday.

Tony Blair has suffered a major rebuff after the Americans poured cold water over an offer to site key elements of their controversial "Son of Star Wars" missile defence system on British soil.

Earlier, No 10 confirmed for the first time that the Government was in discussion with Washington about hosting parts of the programme - believed to be the interceptors used to bring down a ballistic missile - in the UK.

Within hours, however, the US deputy chief of mission in London, David Johnson, went on the airwaves to say the US administration was primarily focusing on allies in Eastern Europe to locate the system.

"As we go forward there may be opportunities for us to talk to other countries about their needs, but right now we are concentrating on the Czech Republic and on Poland as the primary sites where we would be looking for this," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

The rejection of the UK to host the programme is likely to be seen as a massive embarrassment for Mr Blair, after No 10 had made clear that Britain had come forward with the offer.

"It is our intention that whilst the United States are in the decision-making process, the UK should be considered as part of that," a spokeswoman said.

"The Prime Minister thinks it is a good idea that we are part of the consideration by the United States. We believe that it is an important step towards providing missile defence coverage for Europe of which we are part."

No 10 would not expand on why Mr Blair wanted it to be located in Britain. However, the offer appears to have been an attempt to further bind the UK to the US before he leaves office.

The Americans are primarily searching for a European site for the underground silos which would house the interceptor missiles used to "shoot down" a ballistic missile as it hurtles through space on the way to its target.

The aim is to provide protection from a missile launched from a "rogue state" in the Middle East against the US, its allies, or its forces overseas.

Every mention of the 'coalition of the willing' reminds us that there is not much left of the international 'willing' troops in Iraq. After the declaration yesterday from the British and the Danes that they would withdraw, the coalition actually now exists only on paper, and the expression has become a synonym for political and military miscalculation. It has already been a synonym for violating international law for a long time.

Bush was clearly not even in the position to persuade his allies Tony Blair and Anders Fogh Rasmussen to delay their statements until after the next round of voting on Iraq in Congress. The news comes at a time when the current US offensive appears to even be leading to an increase in violence in Iraq -- and the withdrawal announcements from London and Copenhagen sound more than ever like declarations of surrender.

Blair is under pressure. After all, it was the military leadership which recently saw the British presence as a problem -- and we don't need to mention what the general public thinks. Blair has not fulfilled the hopes of the military -- the scope of the withdrawal is not large enough and the time schedule is too imprecise.

One can rule out that his motive was to do a favor for his presumed successor, Gordon Brown -- the animosity between the two is too great for that. It probably has more to do with the fact that the situation in Basra does not correspond to the images of civil war coming from Baghdad. And the fact that the security forces -- which are infiltrated by Shiites -- have 'proved' themselves as capable of keeping order.

The withdrawal of 1,600 soldiers that Blair announced yesterday is above all a clear message to the British at home: The security situation in the south of Iraq, where the UK's troops are stationed, has improved so much that fewer foreign soldiers will be needed there in the future. It's a first message of success, then, rather than capitulation.

Whether Blair's withdrawal suits Bush is questionable. Many war-weary American television viewers will ask why their own boys have to keep fighting when their most important allies are leaving. For Bush as well as Blair, it will come down to whether they can convince their voters of their interpretation of the facts: that the situation in Iraq is difficult but not hopeless.

If Blair cannot leave behind a stable and democratic Iraq, as he had once imagined it, he wants to at least resign having partly kept his promise that British troops would not be bogged down for the long term in a civil war in Iraq.

If Bush and the British are lucky, they will manage the withdrawal in good time. For Bush and the Americans, however, their own withdrawal operation will become much more difficult. The US president has no hope of being able to bring his troops back home in the foreseeable future. If he did so, Iraq would probably sink into civil war and the whole Middle East region would fall into new chaos. Bush has to worry much more about his place in the history books than Blair.

The Scotland Yard investigation centres on allegations that Labour members may have breached honours legislation by putting wealthy donors forward for seats at the House of Lords.

A key aide of prime minister Tony Blair has been questioned for a second time by police investigating the cash-for-honours affair.

According to the London Evening Standard, the prime minister's director of government relations, Ruth Turner, was quizzed at a London police station yesterday.

Ms Turner was first questioned last month after being arrested on suspicion of breaching the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 and on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police confirmed that a woman returned as per her bail conditions yesterday.

'She has been released on bail pending further enquiries,' the spokeswoman said, adding that no date had been set for her to return for further questioning.

Downing Street said it would not be commenting on the reports, 'as per usual with this investigation'.

Lord Levy, Labour's chief fundraiser; Des Smith, a government advisor; and Sir Christopher Evans, who loaned the Labour party £1 million in the run-up to the last general election, have all been arrested as part of the investigation.

Poland and the Czech Republic have voiced willingness for the US to install parts of a global missile defense system on their territory. Experts say the project is technically underdeveloped and politically risky.

"We have agreed that our response to the (US) offer will most likely be positive," Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said on Monday at a joint news conference in Warsaw with his Polish counterpart, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The US had asked for permission to station parts of its global missile defense system in the two countries to hinder attacks from "rogue states" such as Iran and North Korea.

Kaczynski defended the plans, saying that the missile shield would not be "aimed against any 'normal' country." Instead the system would be directed against countries "that don't want to follow the rules of the modern world," he added.

The plans have provoked a rain of criticism from all over Europe. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed outrage at the Munich Conference on Security Policy over the missile shield. Moscow sees it as a threat. General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russian army chief of staff, speculated publicly about whether to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which had led to the disarmament of medium-range missiles.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung had criticized the US over the weekend for failing to discuss the plans with Moscow. Iran didn't possess any intercontinental rockets that could reach the United States, Steinmeier added.

But the foreign minister took some of the edge off his comments on Monday during a visit to Azerbaijan.

"As always when a new strategic system is introduced, it's good to create transparency and to start a dialog as early as possible with those who will be affected," he said in the Azeri capital, Baku.

Washington had subsequently started talks with Moscow, he added.

Meanwhile, the plans are being hotly debated in Poland and the Czech Republic. Two-thirds of Czechs are opposed to a missile base, though they aren't particularly averse to having a radar station set up in their country.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper has rejected the project. So far, the Poles have too little information to go on, he has said. Lepper has also warned that the Poles should not ignore the fears of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. He has called for a referendum on the issue.

Czechs don't want the missiles stationed on their territoryBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Czechs don't want the missiles stationed on their territory

The United States wants to build 10 silos for interceptor missiles in Poland and an early warning radar station in the Czech Republic that would also supply intelligence.

The National Missile Defense System (NMD) is a leftover from the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as "Star Wars," that President Ronald Reagan wanted to use to destroy oncoming enemy rockets in outer space. The project never got off the ground due to technical hurdles and exorbitantly high costs. In 1999, President Bill Clinton breathed new life into the project, focusing on shooting down missiles from the earth. George W. Bush has been a committed backer of the system since even before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

With a budget of at least $10 billion (7.6 billion euros), NMD is the most expensive military project ever. The rockets are supposed to destroy enemy long-range missiles in the earth's atmosphere or in space. The United States have already set up bases in Alaska and California for the system to stop rockets from North Korea. Poland and the Czech Republic, which would host the first NMD bases outside the US, would be the outposts against intercontinental projectiles from the Middle East -- that is, Iran.

The system is supposed to be ready to use by 2011. But only half of the one dozen tests carried out have been successful. Even former Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld admitted there were weaknesses.

The NMD program is also risky politically. Otfried Nassauer, director of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security, said he could understand Russia's displeasure.

The missile defense system could "cover parts of the possible flight paths of intercontinental missiles that are stationed in southern and southwestern Russia," the armaments expert told DW-WORLD.DE.

As NATO planned its expansion to the East, the alliance had guaranteed Russia it would not station any important military capacities on the new members' territory for the long-term, Nassauer said.

"Now Moscow feels betrayed because the biggest NATO state doesn't feel bound (to that guarantee) and wants to station national rather than NATO capacities," he said.

Steinmeier, too, recognizes that the United States unilaterally veering away from that guarantee could strain the political climate between the EU and Russia, Nassauer added.

In a joint article published in Polish daily Rzeczpospolita on Monday, the Polish and Czech premiers pleaded their case for the controversial project.

"Joining the missile defense system will serve as passive protection from attacks for all members of the transatlantic community," they wrote.

It's a daring theory. Germany's Steinmeier stressed that the current discussion was only an issue of protecting US territory, and NATO sees it that way, too.

Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer described the defense system last week as purely a bilateral matter between the United States and the Czech Republic or Poland.