DC Confidential -Meyer goes for BLIAR

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4421812.stm

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His main complaint is that Mr Blair was seduced by the glamour of American power, and did not use his leverage to slow down the timetable.

He suggests that the invasion should have been (and hints that it could have been) postponed at least until the autumn of 2003. That would have avoided what he calls the frantic search for a smoking gun to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

It would also have given, he suggests, time for proper post-war planning (as if planning could have stopped the insurgents' onslaught) and might even have produced a second United Nations Security Council resolution authorising an attack.


An important part of the book is its evidence that the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was taken early on

Sir Christopher undermines Mr Blair's claim that the French objections to a second resolution in early 2002 was a total block on any such resolution. He says he never interpreted the French position to be a refusal for ever and a day. The unspoken suggestion is perhaps that Downing Street used the French objection as an excuse to give up on the UN.

It is doubtful, however, if Mr Blair could have engineered a postponement. The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said dismissively that British troops could be left behind if necessary. Vice-President Dick Cheney had not even wanted the UN to be involved, so would hardly have recommended anything which gave it more time.

This is the same Christopher Meyer who penned the phrase "wrongfoot Saddam over the inspectors" in his own DSM-style memo, relating his meeting with Paul Wolfowitz to Blair aide David Manning:



( http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/meyertext.html )

These are his own words about how the UN process related to the onset of war, written in March 2002.

Meyer seems to be saying here that the UN resolutions in the run-up to the war were a way of "building support for military action" by "wrongfooting" Saddam - a British plot with no intent of a peaceful resolution behind them.

In effect, he's saying to Wolfowitz: We (UK) will only come on board if you sign up to our plan to utilize UN resolutions to make it appear that there is a basis in international law for an invasion.

Thus he seems to be indulging in invention now when he thinks there was a chance of waiting until Autumn 2003 - by that time the Iraqi compliance with the inspection regime, and the lack of WMD, would likely be thoroughly established.

It's good that he's gunning for Blair, no doubt, but he's pulling his punches on the run-up to war. The truth would be much more damaging.

he sure plays down his part in this entire mess.