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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJuan Cole: Blair-Bush & Iraq: It’s Not Just the Quagmire But the Lawbreaking & Deception
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24248-focus-blair-bush-a-iraq-its-not-just-the-quagmire-but-the-lawbreaking-a-deceptionFormer British Prime Minister Tony Blair is complaining that he is unfairly blamed for causing the current mess in Iraq and that if Saddam had still been in power it would be just as unstable.
He is, perhaps deliberately, missing the point. His invasion of Iraq was illegal and based on deception and propaganda. That was what was wrong with it. A quagmire that is the fruit of illegality and fraud is the worst.
The UN Charter allows of only two legitimate grounds for war. One is self-defense. Blair was not defending Britain from Iraq when he invaded and captured Basra.
Blair gave the opposite impression to the public. He delivered a bizarre speech in which he said that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction against Europe in as little as 45 minutes. It is not even clear what that assertion could possibly have meant. Iraq had no delivery system for getting chemical weapons to Europe, and you couldnt have hoped to obtain so much as a sandwich in Baghdad in only 45 minutes. Saddam in any case had no such weapons. British officers scratched their heads and supposed that Blair had misunderstood some briefing he received.
(snip)
The other grounds for war is a resolution of the UN Security Council designating a regime a threat to world peace. The UNSC declined to so vote with regard to Iraq.
(snip)
Blairs Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, warned him in spring 2003 that there were no grounds in international law for a British invasion of Iraq, and that he and his government officials could face a trial at the Hague if he went through with it. Blair hid the memo, quite dishonestly, from his cabinet. He then pressured the poor man to revise his opinion. Even so, some ministers resigned over the naked act of aggression.
(end snip)
This is perhaps the best, most succinct summary of the Iraq lie that I have ever read.
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Juan Cole: Blair-Bush & Iraq: It’s Not Just the Quagmire But the Lawbreaking & Deception (Original Post)
deminks
Jun 2014
OP
WhiteTara
(29,676 posts)1. He needs to join *co at that Hague. nt
betsuni
(25,140 posts)2. Just saw Blair on BBC
saying that what "we" didn't realize was that after we got rid of the dictator, how bad things would get between the Sunni and Shiite. Now we should actively shape what happens in the region, Syria, Iraq, etc. Something is wrong with him.