Tony Blair Agreed To Back Iraq War A Year Beforehand

[NSP]

In a vague continuation from the revelations discussed here, it seems Colin Powell's emails have escaped from Hillary's server and ended up in the hands of the press, revealing that Blair was set on making the case for following Bush into Iraq well ahead of the event, and even the dodgy dossier episode.

"The controversy over Tony Blair’s decision to back George Bush over the Iraq war has been rekindled after a memo emerged showing the Prime Minister pledged to support an invasion a year ahead of the conflict.

Details of the Prime Minister’s readiness to back the US in bringing down Saddam Hussein are contained in a note from Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, to George Bush, ahead of Mr Blair’s April 2002 summit with the President in Crawford Texas.

The memo was found in a batch of secret emails on the private server of Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, which was made available by the US courts."
Tony Blair agreed to act as Iraq war cheerleader according to newly released US memo

Is there no end to this tossers duplicity and smarminess...?

 

[mudbutton]

You lot voted for him...

 

[philc]

Sadly this will change nothing if correct, the inquiry will be a whitewash, Blair will continue to make his millions, his wife will shrug this of and his spawn will continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. The only pluses are that the chance of one of his spawn being elected is diminishing and Labour have jumped so far left they are unlikely to see No 10 for many a year.

 

[NSP]

You lot voted for him...

I fuckin' didn't!!!

I take great offence at the suggestion that I would engage in such a treasonous act and have instructed my ambulance-chasing, chiselling lawyer to sue you sideways for hurting my feelings.

 

[NSP]

Sadly this will change nothing if correct, the inquiry will be a whitewash, Blair will continue to make his millions, his wife will shrug this of and his spawn will continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. The only pluses are that the chance of one of his spawn being elected is diminishing and Labour have jumped so far left they are unlikely to see No 10 for many a year.

I hope Chilcott doesn't decide to revise his report to address this revelation, too. It's taking long enough to publish already - and I suspect that that is largely down to Blair stalling on his "right of reply." Chilcott should have put a caveat in his letters to named parties; "You've got until this date to do your 'Maxwellisation' malarkey. If you haven't got back to me by then, stiff shit."

 

[mudbutton]

Sadly this will change nothing if correct, the inquiry will be a whitewash, Blair will continue to make his millions, his wife will shrug this of and his spawn will continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. The only pluses are that the chance of one of his spawn being elected is diminishing and Labour have jumped so far left they are unlikely to see No 10 for many a year.

That sounds like famous last words.

 

[alib]

I fuckin' didn't!!!

I take great offence at the suggestion that I would engage in such a treasonous act and have instructed my ambulance-chasing, chiselling lawyer to sue you sideways for hurting my feelings.

Did the candidate you voted for oppose going to Baghdad then? I recall quite a lot of support for this opportunistic American adventure in HMG. All those MPs eagerly toadying to DC just like Tone. We've currently got a cabinet full of them.

 

[Sundog]

Did the candidate you voted for oppose going to Baghdad then? I recall quite a lot of support for this opportunistic American adventure in HMG. All those MPs eagerly toadying to DC just like Tone. We've currently got a cabinet full of them.

That's because parliament along with the rest of the country were lied to. I suspect that if the truth were known, the decision and therefore history, would have been very different.

 

[Grey_Mafia65]

"Iraw"?

 

[theoriginalphantom]

"Iraw"?

If you are raw, put some cream on it. - Remember, photos or it didn't happen.

 

[Grey_Mafia65]

If you are raw, put some cream on it. - Remember, photos or it didn't happen.

Good point. Is an Iraw War where each side just irritates the fuck out of each other?

 

[theoriginalphantom]

Good point. Is an Iraw War where each side just irritates the fuck out of each other?

It wasn't all fun and sandcastles from where I was and I imagine it wasn't exactly a party for our opposition. We did go a bit further than just irritating each other though.

 

[NSP]

Did the candidate you voted for oppose going to Baghdad then? I recall quite a lot of support for this opportunistic American adventure in HMG. All those MPs eagerly toadying to DC just like Tone. We've currently got a cabinet full of them.

You tell me...

TheyWorkForYou

However, consider that Iraq wasn't on the cards when the preceding GE was held and that, like just about everyone else in that pit of vipers, he swallowed all the horseshit Blair was feeding them.

I no longer live in his constituency and don't vote for his party.

 

[NSP]

"Iraw"?

Alright, alright - no-one likes a smartarse.

Brain moving faster than fingers. Fixed.


[Grudgingly] Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Tsk, hurrumph, fugginwimminbloodycleverclogssmugpainintherectumsnakeswithtitsthelotofthem.

 

[alib]

Funny really, a decade later you have a British politicians who supported going to Baghdad mithering a POTUS who was elected to dash away from the train wreck in Baghdad. He had little interest in the strategic distraction of a regime decapitation in Libya. Finally Barry obliged partly because of the lock step support Dubya received from a reliable Mr Toady in No 10. In neither case did anyone consider the likely consequences after evil had been driven from the land by the forces of righteousness.

As in Iraq Libya is now crawling with these Daesh chappies. We knew full well Derna was hotbed of jihad beforehand. It's now an IS port on the Med. The saviours of Benghazi have rendered it a Takfiri haunted Hell. No one involved in HMG appears to feel remotely responsible for this later irresponsible act. Indeed they aren't even as defensive as Tone in their smug certainty they were right. It's a more culpable unforced error the second time.

They've since backed other ill conceived interventions in Syria (covertly) and Yemen (overt and war crimey) and show no sign of learning any lessons about what creative chaos brings. There's no hint of a lengthy whitewashing enquiry into these unchastened follow up adventures.

And just to add hypocrisy to the charge sheet they all bug out at Vlad when he copies our GWOT-era MO. Often predicting the impudent Russian will come to grief with his destabilising reckless adventurism. There they are right. They should know, been there, done that. And unashamed of their incompetence they'll do much the same again.

Odd thing is you can get reelected as PM after such strategic miscalculations. Long gone Tone alone is vilified, often by political partisans when the current bunch of disgraces all deserve a public thrashing. A careless country gets the politicians it deserves.

 

[alib]

You tell me...

TheyWorkForYou

However, consider that Iraq wasn't on the cards when the preceding GE was held and that, like just about everyone else in that pit of vipers, he swallowed all the horseshit Blair was feeding them.

I no longer live in his constituency and don't vote for his party.

If you read the Pentagon's QDR 98 Operation Iraqi Freedom is there in black and white justifying procurement decisions. Regime change in Baghdad was already US legislated into policy in the Clinton years.

I suspect Peter Lilley is competent enough to have known this. He could be relied on to loudly support just about any action DC took after 9-11 provided a window of opportunity. And in general I didn't disagree with that instinct. We owe them and increasingly rely on them for defence. It's when it gets in the way of interrupting the Septics when they are making an obvious mistake as the French tried to that it fails you.

Blair seemed unable to imagine anything other than a favourable outcome in Iraq so in awe of US unipolar power was he. He's still in denial about the wars failure. He was far from alone in his hubristic assumptions in Parliament. The odd thing is this attitude has survived contact with reality for so many policy makers.

 

[jimmys_best_mate]

Given that UK military preparations were taking place at least a year in advance, it's not exactly a surprise is it?

 

[alib]

That's because parliament along with the rest of the country were lied to. I suspect that if the truth were known, the decision and therefore history, would have been very different.

Nope, large number of MPs would have supported any US decision.

If someone could not detect a strong whiff of BS coming off all the WMD claims they should not be a politician. This was even more obvious if you followed how it was being sold in the US where Saddam was being fitted up as the author of 9-11 in influential organs like The Weekly Standard. Folk in the Pentagon actually seem to have believed their own spin.

For a lot of people it was just a necessary alliance commitment. This was the only argument for joining the war that stood up to scrutiny. We were continually lied to about conditions in Iraq and the Pentagon remains an unreliable narrator of conditions on the ground there. Most grownups realise in the run up to hostilities there's usually an avalanche of justifying falsehoods.

The Septics were going to take down Saddam. Tone was eager to get credit with them for being on board. Dick Cheney thought him an encumbrance. The real question here was what effect would toppling Sunni-Baghdad have on the region? The smart money was very nervous on this. Langley thought it likely would advance Iranian interests. Those in power simply discounted such fears as analytical whining.

Just look at the war HMG is supporting in Yemen. Nobody in the FO seriously believes Yemen is crawling with HA and the IRGC as the Gulfies would have it. We support them as DC does and despite it being a distraction from IS destroying our GWOT policy in Yemen. The KSA is just too rich and important a trading partner not to choke back their paranoid BS.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Still won't be hanging from a lamp post anytime soon I suppose?

 

[Equinox]

In a vague continuation from the revelations discussed here, it seems Colin Powell's emails have escaped from Hillary's server and ended up in the hands of the press, revealing that Blair was set on making the case for following Bush into Iraq well ahead of the event, and even the dodgy dossier episode.

"The controversy over Tony Blair’s decision to back George Bush over the Iraq war has been rekindled after a memo emerged showing the Prime Minister pledged to support an invasion a year ahead of the conflict.

Details of the Prime Minister’s readiness to back the US in bringing down Saddam Hussein are contained in a note from Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, to George Bush, ahead of Mr Blair’s April 2002 summit with the President in Crawford Texas.

The memo was found in a batch of secret emails on the private server of Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, which was made available by the US courts."
Tony Blair agreed to act as Iraq war cheerleader according to newly released US memo

Is there no end to this tossers duplicity and smarminess...?

There really is no end
Official