ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Sep 26 - Blair Warns Against 'False Hopes' For Briton Being Held In Iraq.

PM Tony Blair warns against "raising false hopes" for a British engineer held hostage in Iraq, as the crisis casts a shadow over the start of his party's annual conference. Kenneth Bigley, 62, was abducted in Baghdad 10 days ago, along with two American colleagues who have since been killed. Bigley appealed directly to Blair to intervene in an Internet video broadcast last week. In an interview with BBC TV, Blair was asked how he had felt when he heard Bigley's appeal. He said: "My first reaction is the reaction of anyone, which is real sympathy for him, anger at how he is being held by those people and an earnest hope that, despite all the difficulties, we can do something. But I just don't know if we are able to or not. There is no point in raising false hopes because of the nature of the people we're dealing with. We're doing everything we properly and legitimately can". The British government has ruled out negotiating with the kidnappers. The PM again dismissed speculation that he had come close to resigning earlier this year, saying: "I'm not the wobbling sort". Bigley was taken hostage on Sep 16, along with Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, by Tawhid and Jihad, which is led by Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi. An Islamist Web site has declared that Bigley too has been killed, although Britain's Foreign Office said the Web site was not credible. Bigley's family - his son, his brothers, his Thai wife in Bangkok and his mother in Liverpool, northwest England - have made emotional appeals for his release. The hostage crisis threatens to overshadow the Labour Party get-together. Many Labour delegates remain unhappy with Blair because he took Britain into the Iraq war alongside the US and because of his determination to give private companies a greater role in providing public services. Three new opinion polls published Sep 26 suggested that support for Blair among voters was waning. Forced to defend Iraq policies, Blair said it had probably been "an error" to disband the old Iraqi army completely after the fall of Saddam, but denied that the US and Britain had been ill-prepared for the post-war period in Iraq.