Posted on 11/18/2007 2:16:51 AM PST by tlb
Tony Blair has admitted for the first time that he ignored the pleas of his aides and ministers to deter President Bush from waging war on Iraq because he believed that America was doing the right thing. And he has acknowledged that he turned down a last-ditch offer from Mr Bush to pull Britain out of the conflict.
He has also revealed that he wishes he had published the full reports from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) instead of the infamous September dossier about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction that so damaged him, and was almost certainly one of the factors that contributed to him leaving office sooner than he wanted.
In frank remarks in a BBC documentary, Mr Blair confirmed openly the belief of many of his closest supporters that he never used his position as America’s strongest ally to try to force Mr Bush down the diplomatic rather than the military route.
It was never a “bargaining chip” for him and he was never looking for a way out, he told David Aaronovitch, of The Times, in interviews for The Blair Years. “It was what I believed in, and I still do believe it,” he said.
Mr Blair said: “In my view, if it wasn’t clear that the whole nature of the way Saddam was dealing with this issue had changed, I was in favour of military action.”
The programme reveals that the key meeting at which Mr Bush learnt that he had Mr Blair on side took place at Camp David in September 2002 – six months before hostilities began. In return for promising Mr Blair that he would try to help get a second resolution at the UN, he also won Mr Blair’s pledge that if he got “stuck” in the UN, war would be the only way out. Mr Blair later suggested that Mr Bush tried for a second resolution as a “favour” to him.
The programme also reveals that just before the key Commons vote on war Mr Bush telephoned Mr Blair and offered him a way out. Mr Blair explained why he had declined the offer: “He was always very cognisant of the difficulty I had. He was determined we should not end up with the regime change being in Britain and he was saying to me, ‘Look I understand this is very difficult and America can do this militarily on its own and if you want to stick out of it, stick out of it’, and I was equally emphatic we should not do that.”
Comments on the story go in all directions.
A “Blair is no poodle” bump.
Well Tony... turns out you decided right.
Blair went to war simply because he thought it was the right thing to do.
A rarity in today’s political world - doing what’s right and not what’s popular. I have to give Blair a lot of credit for doing what he thought was right at a high political price. Hopefully history will be kind to both Bush and Blair.
I have been impressed with the courage of Mr. Blair. He showed that he was willing to do the unpopular thing,because it was the right thing, something you will never see most politicians do.
On his domestic performance as PM I think he is a mixed bag. In his early days I could not have thought less of him, I thought he was a British Clinton clone.
I certainly still think that he was very bad for British civil rights.
You would be correct, Mr. Blair, as history will remember, because most liberals will be illiterate by the time it is written.
An alliance of Saddam and Usama would have been the result of "sitting on our hands".
Remember the Embassies, The Cole and 9-11!! There is no need to look beyond these excepting "the lessons of appeasement".
Seems he’s more Churchillian than I imagined.
This is one of a series of articles about Blair, based on an upcoming BBC series about him. In the Sunday Times he comes to some very pessimistic conclusions, that the war will go on for a generation, and it looks like the West doesn’t have the stomach to win. Considering his optimistic personality this is very sobering.
The only real way to stop Islamofascistic Jihad is what Ann Coulter suggested, and which modern-day politician has the stomach for that? Washington, Jackson, Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt might have had the courage and fortitude, but can you think of one current pol that would do what has to be done? We must start today to free ourselves from our dependence on foreign energy!
If we didn't use a drop of Middle Eastern oil, the WTC would still have been destroyed. They are coming after us because we have not submitted. For nearly 1500 years, they have been attacking us at any time we did not occupy their territories.
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