charge that he’s simply made things worse. He’s come as near as he could to an outright apology, an admission that he got the whole thing horribly wrong, but, hey, we’re there now so we better make the best of it.
[I]f the implied reason he went to war was wrong, then what was the justification for removing Saddam? Just getting rid of a bad man won’t do at all — not least because this was not the reason for going to war. It was because Saddam posed a threat to the world, and had refused to show the world, as it had demanded, that he no longer posed that threat. But the result of Blair’s words today is that people are none the wiser about what that threat was, not least because of his bald statement that the information that there were actual WMD was wrong. No word about the 12 year breach of UN resolutions. No reference to the reports that WMD components were moved to other countries. And most crucially, no word about Saddam’s involvement with terror, including the frequent contacts with al Qaeda.
This was clearly a strategic decision to draw a line under the whole WMD issue by stating the worst case scenario that the intelligence was wrong. But in doing so, Blair has done the cause of truth and rationality a grave disservice. Nor has he drawn a line under the controversy that dogs him over Iraq. He might have done so had he come out fighting. But he blew it.
The whole post is well worth a read.
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