Wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill would be worried about the increasing isolation of the United States under President George W. Bush, former British Defence Secretary Lord Heseltine said last night.

And the way Bush went to war in Iraq flew in the face of Churchill?s multi-lateralism, he said.

The case was not made for a war in Iraq as it had been in Afghanistan, added Lord Heseltine, who was speaking last night at a dinner at the Fairmont Hamilton Hotel to mark the 50th anniversary of the Big Three summit in Bermuda between Churchill, US President Dwight Eisenhower, and French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel.

Earlier, Lord Hesletine told he did not support the war in Iraq, but stayed quiet at the time because he assumed Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had strong intelligence to back the case for conflict.

?No I didn?t (support the war), but I remained quiet because I could not believe that an American president and British prime minister could take a decision like that except on the firmest evidence and I had no grounds for challenging that evidence based on the best advice of the American and British intelligence services, but the doubts have grown in America and Britain and across the world because the case that was made has not been substantiated by the evidence,? he told .

?We have now had months to search with the most senior leaders in Iraq in custody and there is no evidence, and this is extremely worrying. I have called for a public inquiry in the UK as have others such as John Major.?

In his speech last night, Lord Heseltine said: ?I think Churchill would today use words of caution about what is perceived to be a recent shift in American policy.

?Churchill above all else was a man convinced by the need for institutions to guide our international behaviour.

?A strong believer in the United Nations, in the need to draw nation states of Europe into a kind of United States, and for the resolution of dispute by dialogue, he would, I think, have wondered at the range of decisions that seem not only to separate American today not only from America yesterday, but from much of the rest of the world.?

While he supported the war in Afghanistan, ?Iraq seems at odds with so much that past policies and leaders have done and said?.

He added: ?The case against Afghanistan was proven, beyond doubt and urgent. The case against Iraq has none of these things.

?It is more likely that we will learn from your (US) congressional enquiries how our intelligence systems seemed so deficient or how our leaders were so persuaded to misrepresent dangers?

Earlier, Lord Heseltine, who was asked to give the speech by Churchill?s only surviving child, Lady Mary Soames, told Churchill?s legacy was that he ?saved the world from tyranny?.

?You can?t overstate the superhuman contribution of the human will and determination he represented in 1940 and 1941, this triumph of the individual in historic terms.?

Lord Heseltine was coy about the current Tory leadership crisis in which Michael Howard will take over from Iain Duncan Smith after Conservative MPs dumped the latter.

He said Smith?s defeat ?was inevitable? and said he wished Howard well.

But when asked who he would have chosen as leader, Lord Heseltine would only say: ?I am not still active in politics. Only the party in the House of Commons, rightly, has chosen the leader.?

And would Howard win the next election for the Tories? ?All of these things will unfold. You must be the 23rd journalist in a week who has asked this question and my answer remains as unpublished as to the other 22.?

Lord Heseltine recalled a holiday in Bermuda in the 1980s, but couldn?t remember where he had stayed. ?It was a villa. I do remember the most fantastic snorkelling and wonderful parrot fish, and we had a wonderful time.?

The former minister who was known in the British press as Tarzan, now spends his time running the publishing firm he founded, Haymarket, and creating an arboretum of 3,500 trees at his country home in Northamptonshire.

He arrived in Bermuda on Thursday night having just returned from a trip to China and he will return to Britain tonight.