Tony Blair is to face scathing criticism from the official inquiry into the Iraq War for the role he played in leading Britain into one of its biggest foreign policy fiascos in modern history.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that the former Prime Minister will be held to account on four main failings:
* Bogus claims that were made about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
* Not telling the British public about his secret pledge with George Bush to go to war.
* Keeping the Cabinet in the dark by his ‘sofa government’ style.
*Failing to plan to avoid the post-war chaos in Iraq.
Well-placed sources say the reputations of Mr Blair and key allies will suffer major damage when the report by Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq War inquiry is published this autumn.
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I need to say this. I have never been a fan of Tony Blair because “Maggie” would never have gone there regarding Iraq or later Afghanistan. I told a lawyer yesterday that my view is that “Bush II” made a huge mistake when after invading Iraq he went all “pissy pants” because of the Pelosi crowd and tried to fix the country. Said lawyer just nodded his head.
“Bad move” because there was no onus on Bush to fix Iraq. What he should have said was “We aren’t going to fix you. You are unfixable. Your problem — not mine. But make no mistake — if you ever try this again we’ll be back and you REALLY won’t like what happens next.”
Billions saved from Iraqi thievery and a very stern message.
“Same, same” with Afghanistan.
My Point: Bush was not ever required to fix what the US army did in Iraq. He did it because Pelosi and crowd “weeped” and like “Boemer” he had the weeping sickness also.
Sometimes I truly give up on our politicians because they cry a lot for no reason I can easily see. They just don’t “get it” and it devastes our treasury as they “weep and wail”.
For what?
Why should we care? I don’t know because this is “for sure”.
We can’t fix the whole world and we shoudn’t even try else we go bankrupt. What we can do (and should) is “go there” — destroy their war making ability — and leave.
What happens then is their concern — not ours. If it takes them a century to become a threat once again that will be up to them. Meanwhile, we “boogie on“, totally unconcerned. And THAT is what should have happened.
Jack that is a very good argument, there is logic to it. Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan it would have been the best strategy. It certainly is from now on and from now on it would even be morally correct. But I don’t think it was morally correct to bomb and leave back at that time.
Whereas I think the US/UK et al did the right thing morally and strategically in Iraq and Afghanistan to stay and try their best to nation build. Because the “flypaper” strategy worked and all the crazy Islamists were attracted to one spot and relatively easily killed, in fact they killed each other.
However, at that point in time it was necessary to nation build after taking out the Taliban and Saddam. It was the right thing to do, to stay and prove that Iraq (or any other Arab people) could become a real, quasi-democratic-nation. Iraq is now on that trajectory and is the most democratic and sane Arab country because of Bush/Blair staying and not listening to Kerry et al when the going got tough.
It was even affordable then, a lousy trillion dollars over 8 years, pre-Obama tax and spend days of trillions in debt per annum.
But there is no argument that your point is very valid from here on in…bomb the crap out of it and leave. If it starts up again, take their oil to pay for it, tough.