Tony Blair’s Feisty Defense of His Iraq War Policy
The decision I took — and frankly would take again — was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) we should stop him.
That was my view then and that is my view now.
This isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception.
AdvertisementIt’s a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programs or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?
No repentance or remorse over the issue. Tony Blair clearly believes he did the right thing and is completely unwilling to succumb to self-doubt or criticism of his handling of the war.
Blair was also willing to take on some of the other rumors surrounding the run-up to the war and deny point blank that there was any “secret deal” with Bush. This is a claim the anti-war left has been making for many years.
Those interested in the details of the “Chilcot” inquiry can read a detailed breakdown over at the Guardian site with comments from some of his most ardent critics.
It is probable that this media push by Blair over Iraq is to set up future projects, including something that might surprise some Labour colleagues: a close working relationship with a London-based hedge fund. His choice of companies might have a few wondering. As Sky News puts it:
What’s intriguing about the link between Mr Blair and Lansdowne is that Paul Ruddock, a co-founder of Lansdowne and one of the city’s wealthiest men, is also a major donor to the Conservative Party.
Unlike President Bush, who still seems to be unable to emerge from the shadow of his presidency despite the fact his successor is doing so poorly (as is the case in the UK), Blair seems to be going on unscathed.
Whether or not he is able, after recent revelations, to put his premiership behind him and move on to other things remains to be seen. If his post-PM days are anything to go by, Tony Blair will be just fine.
“It’s a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programs or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?”
Hear,hear. Well said Mr Blair.
I like and respect Tony Blair even though he is by no means an ally of Israel. Mr. Blair, unlike his bigoted wife who is thoroughly anti Israel and anti Semitic, seems to be a fair minded, common sense, and up to date individual who is willing to let facts and logic inform his judgement rather than his personal biases and desires. I believe that it was these qualities as well as a personal warmth towards regular people that made his leadership so effective and popular with the British public, and which I hope and pray will make him a fair and just Middle East envoy for the European Union.
Tony Blair said it best, “It’s a decision. And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programs or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?”
The dirty little secret about the liberal left, or anyone else against our intervention in Iraq, is that they never seem to have an answer to the above statement made by Blair. To all those fools who have a fetish for “multilateralism” and have placed all of their faith in the United Nations, what were THEY willing to do after Saddam kept breaking UN resolutions, manipulated the “Oil for Food” program, and kept supporting terrorists as well as threaten other nations in the Middle East? The answer was clear: NOTHING. The liberal left, the UN apologists, and the anti-war crowd never answer that question because they already know the answer. They would have preferred to do nothing rather than stop a Muslim megalomaniac from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Remember, even the Clinton administration and Al Gore, of all people, thought Saddam had these weapons or, at the very least, had the capability of making these weapons. The UN inspections of Iraq were always a joke, since Saddam kept stonewalling the UN inspectors. Yet even the “vaunted” UN could never categorically state that Saddam was NOT hiding WMDs.
Which takes us back to the original question, what was the world prepared to do post 9/11 when faced with a threat from an insane Muslim fanatic possibly maintaining an arsenal of WMDs? And this was the same Muslim dictator who had a clear record of using WMDs as well as supporting terrorists (opponents of the war also conveniently forget that Saddam also was responsible for a plan to assasinate President H.W. Bush on a trip to Kuwait).
Tony Blair, who was and is hardly a conservative hawk, recognized this threat and, to his lasting credit, decided to do something about it. Unlike the other worthless European leaders at the time (such as Chirac in France), Blair actually wanted to DO something about Saddam, rather than just deliver a “stern protest” about it at the United Nations. For that alone Blair should be praised.
And to use a phrase from our “fearless” leader Mr. Obama, “Let me be clear about one thing.” We can and must have a discussion on how the war was prosecuted and what our goals were in Iraq, but the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was always a sound one. Personally, I totally agreed with Blair that our only objective should have been to make sure Saddam was killed and that Iraq was not hiding WMDs. Other than that, Iraq always was and will be a bastard nation that was never meant to be (it was created after World War I by Europeans) and it will always be torn by tribal warfare. We should have simply achieved our objectives of eliminating Saddam and his psychopathic sons, made a military point by making sure they didn’t have WMDs, and then left. The Kurds are really the only people worth supporting in Iraq and, aside from them, the Shia and Sunni Iraqis will always be at each other’s throats. Long-term stability in Iraq will always be a fantasy and I don’t have much hope for that country once the United States leaves.
Way to go Tony! People forget the history of Saddam breaking UN Resolutions (and firing missiles at U.S. patrol jets) on a daily basis. It’s also clear that the U.S. military on the ground expected to find WMDs. It’s certainly possible in hindsight to debate the wisdom of the invasion (history will have the final judgement, but not for probably 50 years), but “the war was a big lie fought for oil” argument of the lefties is just pure b.s. By now they actually believe it; the sad thing is that when our national consensus started to break down during the Bush era, it was mainly because of political opportunism. John Kerry. Harry Reid. Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton. You put pandering to your base ahead of your country – things look very different now that you have real responsibilities for national security though, don’t they?
P.M. Blair made another comment
which bears repeating (paraphrased):
“One weakness of a Democracy is that
a threat has to be right before the
people’s eyes before they can be
moved to take action against it.”
On Friday morning, will Conservatives
be pointing to what is left of the
Middle East, and asking:
“Can you see it _now_ ?”
If GWB had not shirked his responsibility to the People who elected him, twice, and had demonstrated this sort of clear, outspoken resolve about his decisions during 2003-04 – as he made them – the political landscape would undoubtedly look very different today.
But as it was, the Bush Administration abdicated its leadership role at home so as to continue the GHWB/Clinton agenda: in GWB’s case, playing “compassionate conservatism roulette” with the socialists. This left an information vacuum that was filled for years with every Left Wing Media lie and misrepresentation imaginable. The bulk of what almost everyone thinks they know about that period is based on those lies, which neither GWB nor the GOP ever made any real effort to expose. They left that job to those of us who were still hoping against hope that they would return to conservative principles. They never did. The result: we got the baleful Democrat Congressional majority in 2007 – which torpedoed a growing economy with its anti-business agenda, and tripled the deficit in a single year, after it had decreased for the previous three years running. To date, that same Democrat majority has exploded the deficit by a factor of TEN over the last budget anyone can reasonably pin on the feckless Republican party.
In contrast, it’s good to see Blair standing his ground on this issue, despite the fact that it ultimately won’t do much good for the British People.
“In contrast, it’s good to see Blair standing his ground on this issue, despite the fact that it ultimately won’t do much good for the British People.”
I’d like to correct this. It won’t do ANY good for the British People. If you compare the UK’s position with that of France, diplomatically, economically, militarily, the UK has gained nothing. And the USA used to have four countries it could mostly depend on – now there are only three.
No American wars. No French wars.
michael (in England) I see plenty of Brits I can depend on around here. Their personal decision to serve their country here demonstrates the resolve and fortitude that made a great nation. George Bush and Tony Blair displayed similar fortitude as national leaders. Although there is much on which disagree, it is not in their determination to keep their nations safe from attack. I suppose you think 7/7 was caused not by radical muslims but by George Bush. Go look up the meaning of the word “dhimmi”.
Saddam had successfully bribed enough members of the Security Council that they voted to ignore THEIR OWN SANCTIONS. The level of bribery and kickbacks in the Oil-For-Food program was shifting long-standing Western business morals over to an Arab style tribe and bribe economy, and it went all the way to the top echelons, globally. To his great credit, GWB busted this cabal.
This might end up being his most important achievement, other than the Do Not Call List, which improved my life more than anything.
Tony Blair claimed that the threat Saddam presented to the us was uppermost in his mind. The development of weapons of mass destruction was an aspect of that threat.
He has been asked if he would still have gone on to invade had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction, he said: ‘I would still have thought it right to remove him.’”
Why does this matter? Because it proves that Blair willfully misled the British public into the war. At the time, he said that if Saddam would have disarmed then the war would have been averted
Tony Blair denied that regime change was British policy
The widely held view that Mr Blair arranged the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to suit his political decision to back Mr Bush.
International and British lawyers have long argued that the war was illegal and controversy has raged over the fact that the Government’s legal advice appeared to change in the run up to war.
The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith eventually claimed the war was legal because Saddam Hussein was in breach of UN resolutions – despite Mr Blair’s failure to secure a resolution explicitly endorsing war.
Regime change by military force, and without legal justification, is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention and international law.
We are a nation of laws and treaties.Due to violent history of the British Empire we have had to learn from it.
It’s about our tolerance and rule of law,a sense of fair play.
We are a nation of laws and treaties.Due to violent history of the British Empire we have had to learn from it.
It’s about our tolerance and rule of law,a sense of fair play.
The refusal to abide by The Ceasefire Resolution and the 16 resolutions that followed over the next 12 years, in addition to his history of developing and using WMD and his support for Islamic terrorism, fully justified the removal of Saddam. He would today be developing nuclear weapons if he had been left in power. Bush and Blair are visionaries.
The ceasefire resolutions were international law. You claim to support the rue of law. Obviously you only support some laws.
Bush lacked the rhetorical skills to support his decision, but he certainly made the right decision. Unfortunately too many people need everything explained to them – again and again.
“The ceasefire resolutions were international law. You claim to support the rue of law. Obviously you only support some laws.”
Unfortunately, there are a group of countries in the Middle East who all ignore Security Council resolutions. One of them is Israel. I don’t condemn Israel at all – quite the opposite. But you can’t have one rule for Israel and another for everyone else.
And for Tom in Afghanistan, I don’t need to look up the word Dhimmi. My own policy would be to leave Afghanistan now AND deport all the Pakistani goat herders we have imported.
I suppose you think 7/7 was caused not by radical muslims but by George Bush.
No, it was caused by a combination of our interference in the Middle East and an immigration policy that Tony Blair not only endorsed but made much worse. As former Blair adviser Andrew Neather put it when describing Blair’s government on immigration and its corollary multiculturalism: I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended—even if this wasn’t its main purpose—to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.
Well, I guess it worked. Today it is virtually a criminal offence to speak against multiculturalism. We must have multiculturalism through immigration and the Muslim world must have it forced on them by American military might. Homogenisation or death!
11. Terry Gain:
‘The ceasefire resolutions were international law. You claim to support the rue of law. Obviously you only support some laws.’
I think we expect better from our democratically elected government. It’s about our action’s not Saddams.Just because he was non-compliant doesn’t mean we should be.
The U.N is only as good as it’s member states.If the U.S calls it powerless and irrelevant,why should anyone abide by it?
‘fully justified the removal of Saddam.’
Then Tony Blair should of said that.That is the problem.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote the letter to Mr Blair in July 2002 – a full eight months before the war – telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein was a blatant breach of international law.
It was intended to make Mr. Blair call off the invasion, but he ignored it. Instead, a panicking Mr Blair issued instructions to gag Lord Goldsmith, banned him from attending cabinet meetings and ordered a cover-up to stop the public finding out.
He even concealed the bombshell information from his own Cabinet, fearing it would spark an anti-war revolt.
Even invasion because of WMD was on shakey legal grounds,this was not discussed openly.
I will be here all day explaining the pre war ‘intelligence’
and how it was presented to us.
He didn’t protect us from the woefull lack of planning by the U.S.post invasion
His answer on reconstruction inadvertently revealed Britain’s insignificance: he had learned of US plans to enforce de-Ba’athification of the Iraqi civil service after they had been announced.
The Chilcot inquiry has been going on since November.This is the first article here i have seen addressing it.(could be wrong).
Please research it.You cannot make a sound judgement on us and our beliefs just on Tony Blairs’ ‘evidence’
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/
‘Unfortunately too many people need everything explained to them – again and again’
The U.S can do what it wants, don’t lecture us on what our foreign policy should be.
It’s nothing to do with you,Blair’s job was to put our needs and values first,he didn’t do this.
I’m with Mags on this – except it should be a two-way thing. You don’t lecture us, we won’t lecture you. And as I keep saying – no American wars; no French wars. For the UK.
If only George Bush could talk like Tony Blair…