I read this in one of the letters to the Glasgow Herald newspaper yesterday... -- a parliamentary answer given by Tony Blair on December 17, 1998. (Source: Hansard) What's changed, Tony??? Or are you making that commitment "irresponsibly"?
You wouldn't happen to have the question and full answer? I still think it was responsible to fully preserve one of the greatest alliances in history. Aside from Eisenhower, just about every President in modern history has appreciated this as well.
http://www.publications.parliament....vo981217/debtext/81217-05.htm#81217-05_spmin8 Scroll down to colum 1101. It is from a statement defending the air strikes after the weapons inspectors were withdrawn due to non-compliance in 1998. NB In my opinion, no alliance is too important to justify a deeply flawed policy. Blair is now finding this out - the war is not going as well as some promised; the UN involvement after the war will be less than Blair wants; British companies are being excluded from the contracts awarded by the US Government.
I wouldn't have supported an invasion of Iraq in 1998, nor would I probably have supported it on September 10, 2001. Saddam probably didn't have anything to do with 9/11, but 9/11 was a wake-up call that we cannot allow these people to go about their way until they attack us. Alex
Yeah, because that whole concept is cast in stone now, isn't it? Poor score for relevance too, little man.
Yes, events of September 11 changed attitudes. But what Blair said then in passing about a possible invasion of Iraq still applies now - you need a massive force (despite what Rumsfeld et al thought), and even then "there is no absolute guarantee of success". To launch a war when the threat of Iraq is still in the "they could" and "they might" stage was not a responsible commitment. To answer my own question, what has changed is the attitude of the Washington Government. Blair's attitude has not changed - he used much of the same rhetoric in that speech as he used in the war debate speech last week. What I think Blair is doing is that he has made a deal with Bush - I'll support you on this, if you press the Israelis on that issue and promise to keep the UN involved at all stages. But clearly this deal, like any deal between a weak partner and a strong partner, is getting worse and worse by the day. Bush's "pressure" on Israel is rhetoric. The Bush administration have no intention of involving the UN in anything but a humanitarian role. Meanwhile, we're getting the bum end of the deal by having to wage an unpopular war, and having to pay £3 billion for the fighting already so far from a weak economy.
> Jackass Maybe, but his opinion is hardly unique. That is why the blitzkrieg offensive that I have been proposing for many months now would have worked. Bush is a wimp.