LONDON -- A British airman captured during the Persian Gulf war and paraded by his captors on Iraqi television, told a London newspaper Friday that any attack on Baghdad without public support could leave troops psychologically scarred, just as U.S. soldiers were after Vietnam.

Pilot John Peters, who along with his navigator John Nichol, was captured by Iraqis when their Tornado bomber was shot down during the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict, told the ***Daily Mirror*** tabloid it would be wrong for Britain to go to war without public backing.

"The general public feeling is that we are not sure we're doing the right thing. No one wants to go to war without a sense that your nation supports you.

"If the nation ends up damning the troops, it will be Vietnam all over again and it will psychologically scar our forces," warned Peters, who retired from the air force two years ago. His comments came the day after British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that Britain's public would need much persuading to back a war in the absence of a second UN resolution.

"If there were a second UN resolution, then I think people would be behind me. I think if there is not, then there is a lot of persuading to do," Blair told a televised debate broadcast by the BBC.

Peters said he was "very uneasy" about Britain's push for war.

"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is an evil man and he operates an evil regime but in my view we have not been given enough reasons to attack a sovereign state.

"We need to be convinced that Saddam has got weapons that are a direct threat to our security," Peters added.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon on Thursday announced Britain would boost its total deployment of warplanes in the Persian Gulf and Turkey to some 100 over the next few weeks, in preparation for possible military action against Saddam's regime.

The force includes Tornado F3 interceptors, Tornado GR4, Jaguar and Harrier fighter bombers, Tristar refuelling aircraft, Hercules transporters, and helicopters, and will be backed up by some 7,000 support personnel. Britain has already committed 30,000 troops, 120 tanks and a 17-vessel naval task force led by the aircraft carrier Ark Royal to a potential U.S.-led war.(AFP)