Tony Blair admits 'I wanted war'

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Saturday November 17, 2007 13:39

by Miriam - MediaBite

editors at mediabite dot org

Aaronovitch and Blair - a duet of lies

Nauseating discussion between two war criminals. At least the public are not buying it according to a Times poll.

Aaronovitch and Blair are men who know no shame - every time either of them speaks of their war record, nausea wells up. The interview reads like a stilted script written specially for them - who knows, maybe Alastair Campbell helped them out - his own 'autobiography' is just as contrived.

From Media Lens:

"Tony Blair: ‘I wanted war – it was the right thing to do’

Philip Webster
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.

The documentary contains clear evidence that many of those around Mr Blair, including Sir David Manning, his foreign policy adviser, Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador at the UN, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary at the time, and even Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, had huge reservations about the rush to war.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.”

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Comments (12 of 12)

The Iraq mess

by Malcolm

Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:42

It is clear that the Saddam Hussein regime was extremely weak.
The Green Zone which is now under daily rocket, mortar and bomb attack from the Iraqi insurgents was the operating centre of Saddam's prior to the 2003 invasion.
The cities of Fallujah and Ramadi and Al-Anbar provence, Najaf and Basra which have been the scene of heavy fighting between insurgents and the occupation forces must have been uncontrollable toward the end of Saddam's regime also.
The tactics of the insurgents which has made military patrols on Iraqi roads extremely hazardous for the US and British must have been the same for Saddam's hated armed forces.
If the 2003 invasion had not occured would Saddam Hussein's regime have faced an insurgency culminating with its destruction?
Would Iraq have collapsed into ethnical and religious violence regardless of US and Coaltion interference?
It seems likely.

Thankfully this did not happen because a UN force would have been sent ostensively to stop the genocide but really to achieve Bush's goal of securing oil resources and the UN rather than the US would have come under insurgency attack perhaps Irish troops also.

Iraq was always going to be a mess.

Let us be thankful it has become the graveyard of American imperialism.

Conversion to RC

by Re-claimer

Sat Dec 22, 2007 19:53

Tony is now a catholic and was converted last evening- do Catholics want war?

Should ask Dr David Kelly (he was Bahai)- a minority religion, RC has a centralised
power nexus based in Rome.

RC now
RC now

war

by crookstown

Sat Dec 22, 2007 22:23

Pope John Paul II was one of the strongest anti-war voices in early 2003

Balir's motivation for Iraq

by Sceptic

Sun Dec 23, 2007 01:53

"ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane." Tony Blair (see link for context)

The headline and selected quotes and the unrelated juxtapositions (Goebbels was a master of that trick) on the thread are designed to paint Blair in the blackest way possible and whether he actually uttered the words "I wanted war" is unclear and even if he did it was unfairly isolated and decontextualized.

Whether in the long run the British intervention in Iraq will be seen to be justified or a historic error it is too early to say.

However what is not in doubt it his motivation that he did this to rescue Iraq from the brutalities of Saddam and for reasons of high moral purpose. This is what he says himself and is the judgment of his foremost objective biographer and it deserves attention more than many of the other sources quoted selectively here.

he wanted war

by re-claimer

Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:40

he gave Bush the impetus through both the special relationship which will destroy Brown
who has re-asserted it, and through the 'coalition of the willing'.

he abused international law and indulged in illegality for profit.
he divided the eu and spied on the UN.

Merry Christmas Mr. Blair.

by paul o toole

Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:18

Happy Christmas to the Blairs
Tonys First Christmas as a Roman Catholic
As someone who had struggled for decades with the contradictions within the catholic
church, I find it no small wonder that Tony Blair was welcomed into the catholic church
as he claimed Catholicism his new religion.
As Pope Benedict with his dubious Nazi past within the Hitler Youth movement during
W.W.II stood outside Auschwitz to commemorate 60 years of its closing in 2005 with
his hands held out in pontification for Sky News asking...’how could the world have
stayed silent?’..
John Paul II’nd asked his cardinals to remain quiet in light of one of his Archbishops in
Colombia begging him to talk to President Carter to stop funding and training terrorists.
Archbishop Romero’s flock were being raped while having their unborn children
removed from their wombs in front of their husbands by terrorists trained by the US
under Paul Bremner in the School Of the Americas in Fort Benning Georgia. Romero was
assisanated infront of his flock for his troubles. Rome remained silent...
The Vatican spirited approximately 20,000 Nazi war criminals to Argentina after WWII
using its diplomatic channels. A lot of the Jewish survivors who escaped Nazi Death
Camps also ended up in Argentina, facing the men on a daily basis who almost destroyed
Jewish Society and culture through genocide supported by Rome.
Pope John Paul said ... ‘in war no one wins’....regarding the killing of about 350,000
Iraqis at that point. How profound.
Pope Benedict has an an awful lot to say about J.K.Rawlings and her Harry Potter
books, but when it comes to genocide on Muslims...as usual ...silence.

I suppose If you take on board that Bono is also Catholic who said... ‘any one can make a
mistake’...when questioned on Blairs role in Iraq. Bush, also a devout Christian, calls
Blair Great leader and Bertie who cant be seen without his black blob of ash on his
forehead on ash wednesday’s and who is himself a daily communicant, calls Bush and
Blair Great leaders.
So Mr. Blair, let me take this oppertunity to wish you a very merry Christmas. Your first
as a Roman Catholic... You are in good company.

Assertion and base motives

Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:53

Re-Claimer - what you are putting forward are assertions, that is, statements without support or reason. A more objective view of events would include:

The US administration and the Congress wanted regime change in Iraq and were prepared to use military means to achieve it.

Motivated by humanitarian concerns above all Tony Blair was prepared to support this goal, also by military means if necessary.

The origins of Blair’s humanitarian concerns were deeply rooted in his Christianity and in the human empathy of a democrat for the victims of the Baathist regime. He had set out his legitimatisation of “liberal interventions” in his 1999 Chicago speech which ought to be studied before imputing base motives to him. Iraq might have been a mistake but Blair acted out of good motives.

The boy Blair

by ex-pat

Sun Dec 23, 2007 14:17

It's okay to be a Blair sympathiser when you didn't live under his tyranny Sceptic !

I've met a lot of folk over here who thought the world of that bitch Thatcher too.

In fact I have met more pro Brits here in Ireland than in any other European country.

What Blair really wanted was something big to confess to on being admitted to the R.C. Faith.

Tyrant ?

Sun Dec 23, 2007 14:35

Being able to see beyond the knee jerk anglophobia of, for example, Ogra Sinn Fein, does not make one a pro brit. Blair was not a tyrant - the label is absurd. Saddam was a tyrant however and it was easy to be against regime change in Iraq so long as one does not have to live under his very real tyranny - as opposed to your imaged tyranny of Blair.

& the conversion of one warmonger, stemcell researcher & sociopath will be worth millions gone?

by funderland on cups of tea

Sun Dec 23, 2007 16:31

I don't get it. No-one becomes a kathurlick anymore. People get born into the structures, grow up with the incense, stories, bells, prohibitions & blaa-blaa & then if their faith moves on from the story book maybe they stay as many do - but undeniably many & increasingly the majority leave the church of Rome: to only return for their funeral. I can't weight "Blair the first former PM of HMG to convert to Popery" with the same world resounding gravity as "JFK the only RC president of the USA" or even "Disraeli the only former jew who converted to anglicanism to be a PM". Like come on? Do we really have to expect SuperSarkozy to beat this in 2008 or further down the line? What will he become? A Muslim? Jehovah's witness? Mormon? anyway - he's on his knees now god bless him praying for atonement & mercy. Someday we all get to sing redemption songs or else you know maybe we don't & we just go through butric putrefecation instead. I don't know & I'm sure as sure can be Tony Blair doesn't know either.

his confesser is an interesting man

Sun Dec 23, 2007 19:23

He featured in the Irish Times quite recently- Love the sinner. He must have a whole lot
of love- had a tonsure too.

anyway- Sarkozy will probably reproduce.

The Brit Dailies are leading, and the US caucas that wants congressional and presidential
candidates to sign a bit of paper asking for the removal of the RC prohibition on succession
and monarchical religion are doing their thing too.

suffer little children..... 600,000 Iraqi kids.....

by fuck funderland it's no fun

Mon Dec 24, 2007 00:58

Actually Sarkozy reproducing is one of my main worries for 2008. Not as in the pitter patter of little feet or scritch scratch of little hoofs with the new love (model & pop star) Carla Bruni who he launched at Eurodisney last weekend & brought to Rome this weekend whilst he enjoyed a chat with the Pope (just before the pope did Blair). Capitalism on viagra shacked up with centre right visual promotional prosperity popularism was a strategy attempted by the Blair regime & his "new labour" in the beginning. It failed, "cool britania" got its explanation here http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84383 in the ""No Anorexia"? "Body Fascism"? or Shock Style mocks Art again?" article. After such dismal attempts to win that leadership mass appeal (which has been very very rarely achieved) the Blair regime could only attempt those cards with the make poverty history crap & Geldof & Blair on MTV (C/f https://www.indymedia.ie/article/82305 ) Still enough people fell for it. Nope Sarkozy is no longer a joking matter. The man is astoundingly skillful at using the power of the French presidency in way it has never been used before. Right after meeting Ratzinger, showing his girlfriend the sights (whilst she filled in yet another gossip magazine interview session) he kept his eye on the new French south American strategy & then off to Afghanistan for five hours which helped him upstage the Italian prime minister Prodi for the second time in one week - the first being the new "united mediterranean within EU block" of - yep Capitalism & Security on viagra. All over the continent people are waking up to what Sarko's skill is about. At the moment I rate him as more dangerous to the left, tolerance, peace & pretty much most of our global project than Berlusconi ever was or odd as it might seem - GW Bush.

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Tony Blair admits 'I wanted war'

Comments (12 of 12)