1 Boring Old Man

Britain’s Blair steadfast on decision to support Iraq war in new memoir
The Hill
By Emily Goodin
09/02/10

Former British prime minister Tony Blair spends more than 100 pages of his newly released memoir defending the war in Iraq. Blair, who was criticized for his decision to stand by President George W. Bush and send British troops to the region, covers the topic throughout three chapters of his book, “A Journey: My Political Life”…

Blair writes about the Iraq war as a politician, noting he can see both sides of the argument over the conflict, but said his task is “not to persuade the reader of the rightness of the cause, but merely to persuade that such a cause can be made out.” The former British prime minister wrote that he doesn’t regret his decision to support the war, but conceded he never guessed at the “nightmare that unfolded” after the invasion.  

In discussing the buildup to the war, Blair reminds the reader of the fear that was felt throughout the world after the September 11th attacks. He said he doesn’t know why the intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was wrong, but maintains Saddam may have been able to develop such weapons in the future if action had not been taken against him. “I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him, and that terrible though the aftermath was, the reality of Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq would at least arguably be much worse,” he wrote.

Blair dismisses speculation that Iraq’s oil had a role in the decision to go to war, stating that, “if oil had been our concern, we would have cut a deal with Saddam in a heartbeat.” He defends Bush at several points in the memoir and gives the former president credit for the 2007 troop surge in Iraq — something Obama didn’t do in his Oval Office address.

In discussing the backroom decision-making over the war, Blair hints at Vice President Cheney’s stubbornness without making any direct charges against him. “Dick is the object of so much conspiracy theory that it’s virtually impossible to have a rational discussion on him,” Blair wrote. “… My take on him was different from that of most people. I thought he had one central insight which was at least worth taking seriously. He believed, in essence, that the U.S. was genuinely at war; that the war was one with terrorists and rogue states that supported them. … In other words, he thought the world had to be made anew… He was for hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes”…

Is no one sorry? Blair says, "his task is ‘not to persuade the reader of the rightness of the cause, but merely to persuade that such a cause can be made out.’" What does that mean? It’s possible that one can make an argument that this wasn’t the biggest blunder of all time, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? "… he never guessed at the ‘nightmare that unfolded’ after the invasion."  Which nightmare is he referring to? The fact that every reason given for the invasion was a lie, and that that was apparent early in the war? Or was it the nightmare that al Qaeda [that had attacked the U.S. because we were occupying the Middle East] reacted negatively to our further occupation of the Middle East? Could he be referring to the fact that Iraq which had a bad government and had been choked by the embargoes didn’t do well with no government at all? Maybe the nightmare was Cheney ["He believed, in essence, that the U.S. was genuinely at war; that the war was one with terrorists and rogue states that supported them. … In other words, he thought the world had to be made anew…"]. Now there’s a nightmare I can get with.

Speaking of Cheney, Blair says, "Dick is the object of so much conspiracy theory that it’s virtually impossible to have a rational discussion on him. My take on him was different from that of most people. I thought he had one central insight which was at least worth taking seriously. He believed, in essence, that the U.S. was genuinely at war; that the war was one with terrorists and rogue states that supported them." There’s another piece of Blair logic, it’s at least possible that what Cheney thought should be taken seriously [unlike everything else that Cheney thought?]. Just because Cheney had a single thought that should be taken seriously doesn’t mean we had to act on that thought. We were at war with the Terrorists. We were at war with the rogue states that supported them. Iraq just didn’t happen to be one of those rogue states that supported them. I knew that back then. Most of us did, and the ones that didn’t just weren’t thinking right. Tony Blair probably knew it himself.

But he goes on to say, "I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him, and that terrible though the aftermath was, the reality of Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq would at least arguably be much worse" [there’s that word again "arguably" with a modifier – "at least"]. I think Blair actually believed that. Maybe Bush and Cheney did too. I personally think they were wrong, but that’s just a disagreement. Bush said the same thing Blair’s now saying. "You’ve got to understand," Bush said. "Saddam Hussein was a bad man." No one has ever argued with Hussein’s badness. But that’s not why Congress, or America, or Britain agreed to invade Iraq. "I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him" was simply not true. Our security was not at risk from Iraq, whether Hussein stayed in power or was deposed – either way. I am not persuaded "that such a cause can be made out." It’s not true now. It wasn’t true then.

There was no Casus Belli [cause for war]. Lord Goldsmith said it to Blair over and over again. In this country, we shamefully knew that to be true but didn’t act on it. Maybe we had temporary insanity because of 911. Most of the evidence says otherwise – that the plans to depose Hussein antedated 911. Maybe Blair had temporary insanity too, but we don’t need a book from him trying to justify his acting crazy. All that does is make his insanity a permanent fixture.