Blair Blamed for Peace Process Crisis

Northern Ireland’s leading Protestant politician blamed British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the province’s peace process crisis, saying he tried to push things too quickly. David Trimble, of the Ulster Unionist Party, said in the London Sunday Telegraph that Blair drove the peace process “into the wall” by “always pushing for things to be done immediately and not allowing people to think things through.” Blair had set a deadline last week for all parties to resolve a yearlong stalemate over guerrilla arms and get a regional government running by the weekend--a deadline that was missed and has left the process suspended.