{"id":3837,"date":"2010-01-29T07:46:50","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T12:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3837"},"modified":"2010-01-29T21:04:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T02:04:27","slug":"and-now-to-tony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/29\/and-now-to-tony\/","title":{"rendered":"and now to Tony…"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry 4:30 AM-7:00 AM:<\/font><\/strong> I’m sure Tony Blair didn’t have to stay after school for not doing his homework – he’s a bundle of information [and vivacity]. The risk assessment of Iraq changed after 911. The options were: UK containment, UN containment, remove Saddam [UN 1409<\/a><\/strong>]. He says Regime Change versus WMD is a false dichotome, they are interrelated. Blair denies agreeing to Regime Change at Crawford in April ["in blood"], though he did commit to stand "shoulder to shoulder." He confirms that the UK policy was to go the "UN Route." Tony Blair is a smart guy – seems principled, informed, and sincere. When he talks about Bush, he speaks of him as a colleague [rather than as a dolt].  He was grilled about the "dossier<\/font><\/strong><\/a>" [September 24, 2002] in which he said "I believe" "beyond doubt" that Saddam was continuing his WMD program. There were a lot of questions of timing and the issue of "the second resolution." Blair obviously tried to draft a "second resolution" with clears tests of compliance, but the block was clear at that time. Russia and France were set to veto any resolution that lead to the use of force. Comes now the break for lunch and my need to go to my volunteer job. So I’ll view the afternoon session belatedly after a day at the clinic. <\/div>\n

[see Citing 9\/11, Blair Defends Legacy at Iraq Inquiry<\/a><\/strong>]…<\/p>\n

Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry, Afternoon Session:<\/font><\/strong> In the grilling of Tony Blair about the legality decision, Blair seemed to stick to the details of Lord Goldsmith’s final decision [the "revival argument" is valid – the invasion is "legal"] and Blair avoided that Goldsmith’s argument was a minority opinion or that it was a eleventh hour decision. In this area, Blair couldn’t get out of the "what was done" position into looking at "what was done." In the area of post-invasion planning, Blair kept saying "we planned for the wrong thing," not "we planned poorly." I must say, throughout this grilling which was confrontive, or as confrontive as the British seem to get, Tony Blair held his own. He is, indeed, a lawyer.<\/p>\n

I have nothing to say about the late discussion of post regime change Iraq.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry 4:30 AM-7:00 AM: I’m sure Tony Blair didn’t have to stay after school for not doing his homework – he’s a bundle of information [and vivacity]. The risk assessment of Iraq changed after 911. The options were: UK containment, UN containment, remove Saddam [UN 1409]. He says Regime Change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}