[Peace-discuss] A liar and a murderer, like Bush and Obama

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Published on Friday, January 29, 2010 by The Independent/UK
	"I Have No Regrets," says Defiant Blair
	by Gavin Cordon, Sam Marsden and Mark Bulstrode, Press Association

A defiant Tony Blair today mounted a vigorous defence of the invasion of Iraq, 
insisting he had no regrets over removing Saddam Hussein and would do the same 
again.

In his long-awaited appearance before the Iraq Inquiry, the former prime 
minister denied he had taken the country to war on the basis of a "lie" over 
Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

He suggested the world could now be faced with the threat of a nuclear-armed 
Iraq if he and President George Bush had not taken action to confront the Iraqi 
dictator.

Asked at the end of six hours of testimony by inquiry chairman, Sir John 
Chilcot, whether he had any regrets, he said: "Responsibility but not a regret 
for removing Saddam Hussein.

"I think that he was a monster. I believe he threatened not just the region but 
the world. And in the circumstances that we faced then, but I think even if you 
look back now, it was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office."

One member of the audience shouted out: "What, no regrets? Come on".

Then as he left, another audience member heckled: "You are a liar," while 
another added, "And a murderer".

His voice apparently beginning to fade, after what had been a largely assured 
and fluent performance, he insisted that Britain - and in particular the armed 
forces - should feel an "immense sense of pride" for the role they had played.

"I had to take this decision as prime minister. It was a huge responsibility and 
there is not a single day that passes by that I don't reflect and think about 
that responsibility and so I should," he said.

"But I genuinely believe that if we had left Saddam in power, even with what we 
know now, we would still have had to have dealt with him, possibly in 
circumstances where the threat was worse.

"In the end it was divisive and I am sorry about that and I did my level best to 
bring people back together again but if I am asked whether I believe we are 
safer more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better, with 
Saddam and his two sons out of office and out of power, I believe indeed we are."

At the end of a gruelling day some members had to be led out of the hearing room 
sobbing, after breaking down in tears.

Despite an uncharacteristically nervous sounding start, Mr Blair rarely appeared 
discomforted during more than six hours of questioning.

However his appearance infuriated some of the families of troops killed in the 
conflict sitting in the audience, who accused him of being "smug" and "smarmy".

Mr Blair admitted that it had always been his intention that Britain would be 
"shoulder to shoulder" with the Americans if it came to war.

However he rejected suggestions that he had struck a secret deal with Mr Bush to 
overthrow Saddam insisting that he had always been open about what he was doing.

"The one thing I was not doing was dissembling in that position. The position 
was not a covert position, it was an open position," he said.

"This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It's a 
decision."

Mr Blair arrived almost two hours early for the hearing to avoid the determined 
pack of several hundred anti-war protesters gathered outside the Queen Elizabeth 
II Conference Centre in Westminster.

 From the outset he emphasised that his thinking on the threat posed from by 
Saddam had changed "dramatically" following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

"I never regarded September 11 as an attack on America, I regarded it as an 
attack on us. And I had said we would stand shoulder to shoulder with them," he 
said.

While he agreed that Britain had never accepted any link between Iraq and al 
Qaida, he was not prepared to take the chance that Saddam would could 
re-constitute his WMD programmes given his support for other terrorist 
organisations in the Middle East.

When he met Mr Bush at the president's Texas ranch in Crawford in April 2002, he 
said they had agreed on the need to confront the Iraqi dictator, but insisted 
they did not get into "specifics".

"What I was saying - I was not saying this privately incidentally, I was saying 
it in public - was 'We are going to be with you in confronting and dealing with 
this threat'.

But pressed on what he thought Mr Bush took from their meeting, he went further, 
saying: "I think what he took from that was exactly what he should have taken, 
which was if it came to military action, because there was no way of dealing 
with this diplomatically, we would be with him."

Mr Blair insisted if Iraq could pose an even more deadly threat - possibly 
locked in a nuclear arms race with Iran - if Britain and the US had "lost out 
nerve" and not stopped Saddam.

"Sometimes what is important is not to ask the March 2003 question, but to ask 
the 2010 question," he said.

"What we now know is that he retained absolutely the intent and the intellectual 
know-how to restart a nuclear and a chemical weapons programme.

"I have little doubt myself ... that today we would be facing a situation where 
Iraq was competing with Iran, competing both on nuclear weapons capability and 
competing more importantly perhaps than anything else, in respect of support of 
terrorist groups."



Copyright 2010 The Independent

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