LUCK and good timing are among the intangible qualities that can make, rather than break, a Prime Minister.

Margaret Thatcher had both. So did Winston Churchill. And Tony Blair appears to enjoy both in abundance.

Returning to Parliament after the party conference season had all the hallmarks of being a disaster waiting to happen for the Prime Minister.

His attempt to switch the focus of voters from Iraq to the domestic agenda - yet more radical plans for schools, hospitals and the police - had failed.

He had been forced to apologise for the fact that crucial intelligence used to justify the case for war against Saddam Hussein was wrong.

Next, a damning report by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction - indeed, had destroyed them all after the 1991 Gulf War - shattering in a single blow the UK and US's case for going to war.

Then British engineer Ken Bigley, kidnapped by Iraqi extremists led by

terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was beheaded, with the chilling images posted on the internet for a sickened world to witness.

And to cap a horrendous couple of weeks for Mr Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that MI6 had finally withdrawn the notorious claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.

An affray awaited Mr Blair at Prime Minister's Questions, the weekly political ding-dong in the House of Commons.

Conservative leader Michael Howard went on the attack, insisting the PM had deliberately "misrepresented" the intelligence. "Why can't he bring himself to say sorry for that," he crowed.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy also stepped up the pressure on Mr Blair, warning that the failure to find banned weapons had completely obliterated the legal justification for war. Leaked Government documents suggested ministers were committed to "regime change", which is illegal under international law.

The PM could have been left reeling. But he launched an immediate fightback: "I will not apologise for removing Saddam. I will not apologise for the conflict. It was right then, is right now."

His words could have seemed like bloody-minded stubbornness had fate not played a hand.

For as Mr Blair spoke, satellite television stations were beaming into homes around the world gruesome images of mass graves uncovered in the Northern Iraqi town of Hatra.

Hundreds and hundreds of bodies had been dug up - all butchered by Saddam.

Among the piles of bodies - believed to be victims of the tyrant's offensive against the Kurds in the 1980s - was a mother clutching her baby. The infant had been shot in the back of the head and the woman blasted in the face.

Watching the pictures on satellite news channels, it felt as if any carping against the Government's decision to go to war - however flawed the intelligence, however unpopular - was unreasonable.

One of the most evil dictators the world has known had been toppled. End of story.

Mr Blair's problem, one could argue, lay with the United Nations (UN). Surely UN bosses should allow military action on humanitarian grounds - where a dictator is committing the most flagrant and horrendous human rights abuses.

This would justify intervention in Zimbabwe, Sudan, East Timor... but also throw up the thorny problem of how to deal with North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia, a country whose rulers sympathise with the US. But even if the PM can persuade voters that toppling Saddam was the right thing to do, ethically and morally, he should still face some uncomfortable questions.

For why did he decide to take action in 2003? Why not in 2000? Or 1998?

Because if his heartfelt concern is for the good of the Iraqi people - and Mr Blair never tires of asserting the welfare of its citizens - it could be argued that by taking action earlier against Saddam, many people tortured and killed by the dictator might be alive today.

Updated: 09:38 Friday, October 15, 2004