Friday, January 29, 2010

More on Tony Blair

As articulate as Bush was bumbling, Tony Blair describes with absolute clarity the only link between 9/11 and the decision to invade Iraq.

September 11 changed the 'calculus of risk'.

But even without that link, the invasion can be well justified.
"He made clear, therefore, that it did not matter there was no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida: Britain, and the US, could no longer tolerate the risk posed by countries that had, or wanted to acquire, weapons of mass destruction.

September 11 "completely changed our assessment of where the risks lay", Blair told the inquiry. He added: "The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful message after September 11 – if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop." That was particularly the case with "brutal" regimes. "The nature of the regime did make a difference to the nature of the WMD threat," Blair insisted."

[---]
"Blair strongly defended the invasion of Iraq in 2003 throughout the day. In the morning session he said: "This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It is a decision.

"The decision I had to take was given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over 1 million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking UN resolution, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programme? Or is that a risk it would be irresponsible to take? It is a judgment in the end."

Blair said: "Sometimes what is important is not to ask the March 2003 question but to ask the 2010 question. Supposing we had backed off this military action, supposing we had left Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq – people who had used chemical weapons, caused the deaths of over a million people."
Plenty happening on either side of the Channel. The outcome of both this inquiry and of Geert Wilders trial will be felt around the world.

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