Tony Blair’s “A Journey” (4)
I continue to read “A Journey” by Tony Blair. Of course, the most memorable feature of his premiership was Britain joining with the United States in the invasion of Iraq. Blair devotes over 100 pages of the 700-page volume to the Iraq war. There are no new facts or revelations because there was no cover-up or conspiracy, but he does explain at length his thinking and motivations.
There can be no doubt that Iraq was in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions and Blair lists nine with which the regime was in non-compliance. Whether there was UN authority to invade is highly debatable legally but Blair makes his case. Whether there were weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was widely debated but mostly assumed to be the case.
He records: “We the key allies had no doubt that Saddam had an active WMD programme” but concedes that: “The intelligence on Saddam and WMD turned out to be incorrect. It is said – even I have said – that how this came to be so remains a mystery.” Somewhat at odds with the ‘mystery’ remark, he adds: “The intelligence was wrong. We admitted it. We apologised for it. We explained it even.”
He writes: “The military campaign of conquest was a brilliant success. The civilian campaign of reconstruction wasn’t” and concedes: “That the planning for the aftermath was inadequate is well-documented”.
He writes: “So the aftermath was more bloody, more awful, more terrifying than anyone could have imagined. The perils we anticipated [use of WMD] did not materialise. The peril we didn’t [the insurgency] materialised with a ferocity and evil that even now shocks the senses.”
He insists: “I can’t regret the decision to go to war” but adds: “I can say that never did I guess the nightmare than unfolded” and “The truth is we did not anticipate the role of al-Qaeda or Iran”. He concludes: “All I know is that I did what I thought was right. I stood by America when it needed standing by. Together we rid the world of a tyrant. Together we fought to uphold the Iraqis’ right to a democratic government.”
Although British involvement in the invasion of Iraq is overwhelmingly associated with Blair as an individual, “A Journey” reminds that the decision was debated in the House of Commons and approved by 412 votes to 149.
March 16th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
“slavish protration of the English media at the feet of this man” – a laughable comment.
“nothing really remarkable about Blair’s successes”. How about three successive election wins, one of these in 2005 after the Iraq War furore?
The right-wing British media did a great job on the Blair government, so that now personal anti-Blair sentiment has become a kind of mantra, a competition to see who can post the most extreme vitriol about him on the Net. It is mostly totally ill-informed and amounts to saying the following : Blair & co made up a lot of stuff about WMD’s to deceive Parliament, he cosied up to George Bush & agreed to go to war regardless of the UN, the invasion was a catastrophe and led to 100,000s dying.
The rebuttal to this is: The Butler Report found that the Govt had not done this. Butler was an independent judge, not a new-labour lackey, he found that the Andrew Gilligan story which the BBC ran was incorrect, but the media branded it a white-wash and the simple-minded say that the govt took us to war over a lie.
Secondly, there was ample evidence that Saddam had had WMDs – no argument over this in the internat community. The invasion took place in early 2003. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix’s reports in January and February stated Saddam was still in material breach. UN resolution 1441 was a “final” warning for him to comply. Previous UN resolution 668 gave authority for military action – “all necessary means to achieve compliance”. This had been authority for bombings in 1993 and 1998. When 1441 was being agreed upon, France & Germany asked that it include a provision stating that a further resolution would be required for military action, that request was turned down by the UN.
100,000s didnt die because the coalition invaded Iraq. They died because Al Quaeda moved in and helped by Iran they started a campaign of terrorist bombings against Sunni and Shia people including mosques, market places and hospitals.
None of the vitriol bandwaggon merchants want to discuss the details, but the book does so in a lot of depth and well referenced, you are not expected to simply take TB’s word for it.