OT - Tony Blair straw poll

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="lake district canary"]Intelligence about WMD was the catalyst for Blair.  His instincts had always been to go along with whatever Bush wanted, but to be able to do that, he needed a reason - and that reason was the intelligence about WMD.   That the intelligence was wrong is history, but having got the evidence he needed, he then felt justified to take us in to war. Did he believe that intelligence?  I believe he did and therefore that he can not be judged the way people are doing.   Yes, he was wrong, but it''s easy to forget what those times were like, the uncertainty, the terror, the sheer feeling of wanting to do something to try and fight against tyranny and terror.  Also, people forget that Saddam Hussein deliberately allowed the world to think he had WMD.   Was it Blair''s job to try and work out whether he really had WMD, or was it his intelligence people?   The intelligence came in, Blair was wanting to side with the US anyway and the rest is history. Does that make Blair guilty of anything other than being a leader who had to make decisions based on the situation he saw?  Not in my book.  It was a wrong decision to go to war imo, but not a criminal one.

[/quote]

This history is wrong. The UN had weapons inspectors on the ground who were in the process of discovering what the Itaqis were telling them was true. - that they didn''t now have any WMD. The head of the UN team said it would only take a few more months to be certain that Iraq was clear of WMD.

But that didn''t suit the Bush agenda. The last thing he wanted to hear was that there was no WMD reason for going to war.

Whether there was some kind of Freudian motivation, to do with his father not having carried on to topple Saddam, doesn''t really matter. He was determined to have a war.

As is pretty obvious from what we know now from phone conversations between him and Blair. Hence his decision to effectively ignore the UN and all that second resolution stuff and start it before the UN inspectors could thwart him.[/quote]

Yes, all that is so, but that does not make my interpretation of events wrong.  The inspectors were at work, but they were taking too long for the political pressure that the US were forcing on the rest of the world.  The pressure was from Bush - and Blair, rightly or wrongly, wanted to be seen in a united front with the US.  The intelligence report was all Blair needed to have the excuse to go ahead.

[im spartacus canary 0]

So LDC he was looking for an excuse to go to war ?

Even your defence of him makes a pretty good case for holding him to account.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="im spartacus"]So LDC he was looking for an excuse to go to war ?

Even your defence of him makes a pretty good case for holding him to account.[/quote]He was looking at a way of supporting the US in their - and our - battle against terroism  He may have been wrong, but I can''t believe his motivation was anything other than honourable.

[Mello Yello 2,282]

Honourable?........Ah, yes.......''Honourable''.......

[paul moy 235]

[quote user="Mello Yello"]If you continually repeat an untruth often enough......You actually and eventually, end up believing it......

Campbell, Straw, Goldsmith, Falconer and a ''few'' others. Really do need to take a good long hard look at themselves......

RIP Dr David Kelly.......and all the many Innocents.....[/quote]

So glad that you mentioned Dr David Kelly who was killed IMO because he spoke the truth about the ''sexed-up'' dodgy dossier.  I wonder if he was mentioned at all in the Chilcot report.  

[E.L.F. 0]

lake district canary wrote the following post at 09 Jul 2016 10:07 AM:

He was looking at a way of supporting the US in their - and our - battle against terroism He may have been wrong, but I can''t believe his motivation was anything other than honourable.

"He was looking at a way of supporting the US in their - and our - battle to remain as rogue states."

Fixed that for you.

[Van wink 2,994]

We went to war before all the options for peace had been exhausted. A disgrace to to jump to such a massive decision prematurely.

[cornish sam 949]

Sounding dangerously like your avatar there vanwink :)

[Van wink 2,994]

cornish sam wrote the following post at 09/07/2016 8:58 PM:

Sounding dangerously like your avatar there vanwink :)

Or the sadly departed Robin Cook

[Jools 584]

[quote user="Nuff Said"]OK Jools, going straight to Wikipedia:

In domestic government policy, Blair significantly increased public spending on health and education while also introducing controversial market-based reforms in these areas. In addition Blair''s tenure saw the introduction of a minimum wage, tuition fees for higher education, constitutional reform such as devolution in Scotland and Wales, and progress in the Northern Ireland peace process. The British economy performed well and the real incomes of Britons grew 18 per cent during 1997–2006. Blair kept to Conservative commitments not to increase income tax in the first term although rates of Employee''s National Insurance (a payroll levy) were increased. He also presided over a significant expansion of the welfare state during his time in office, which led to a significant reduction in relative poverty

There are things in there I don''t personally agree with, and so do could add, but in terms of domestic policy I would say his term as PM was more succesful than most of his recent prime ministers.[/quote]Yes that''s right, Nuffski, money was cheap and flowing as if there were no tomorrow [Y]And we''re still paying for it [:|]

[Mello Yello 2,282]

I see that former Deputy PM ''Slugger'' Prescott has twisted the knife into his former PM........Wonder why?.......

Self preservation Prescott society.......

[E.L.F. 0]

lake district canary wrote the following post at 08 Jul 2016 10:01 PM:

Yes, he was wrong, but it''s easy to forget what those times were like, the uncertainty, the terror, the sheer feeling of wanting to do something to try and fight against tyranny and terror.

Nice hyperbolic rhetoric LDC. The US and UK were the purveyors of tyranny and terror in this case and look at the results today.

Onward, christian soldiers, marching as to war.......