Well he's admitted that if he'd known there were no WMD's he'd still have supported Bush and gone to war to get rid of the Iraqi regime. Posters on many other forums are furious and calling for him to be tried now for war crimes. How ludicrous in my opinion. Saddam had to be removed. One father of a dead soldier is even threatening a Citizens Arrest. :rolleyes: He'll probably be shot by his Special Branch bodyguards if they try that! :rolleyes:

 

From BBC News:

 

It would have been right to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein even without evidence he had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tony Blair has said.

 

The former prime minister said it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region which tilted him in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

 

But his words have attracted critics - among them Hans Blix, who was in charge of the UN team searching Iraq for WMD.

 

He said he thought Mr Blair used WMD as a "convenient justification" for war.

 

"Saddam's removal was a gain but it's the only gain that I can see from the war," said Mr Blix.

 

 

 

"I sympathise with the people who were against... but you know, in the end I had to take the decision", said Blair.

 

 

 

Speaking on BBC One's Fern Britton Meets programme, Tony Blair was asked whether he would still have gone on with plans to join the US-led invasion had he known at the time that there were no WMD.

 

He said: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat."

 

He added: "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge, but it's incredibly difficult..

 

"That's why I sympathise with the people who were against [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, you know, in the end I had to take the decision."

 

Asked whether it was the idea of Saddam having WMDs which had tilted him in favour of war, Mr Blair said it was "the notion of him as a threat to the region of which the development of WMDs was obviously one" aspect.

 

'Worth it'

 

He added that there had been "12 years of United Nations to and fro on this subject" of Iraq's weapons and that Saddam had "used chemical weapons on his own people, so this was obviously the thing that was uppermost in my mind - the threat to the region".

 

Meanwhile, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, backed Mr Blair's stance.

 

The foreign minister, a member of a government brought into being as a result of the invasion, was a senior Kurdish official during the 1990s.

 

In 1988 Saddam attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq using chemical weapons.

 

Mr Zebari told the BBC: "As Iraqis who have gone through the suffering and the agony of Saddam Hussein's regime, we support Tony Blair's statement.

 

"I believe it was worth it. I believe Saddam Hussein's regime was an affront to the international community, to the international consciousness because of the atrocities, the crimes, he has committed."

 

But Mr Blix disagreed, saying he believed Mr Blair's statement had a "strong impression of a lack of sincerity".

 

"The war was sold on the weapons of mass destruction, and now you feel, or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments, as he said, it sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up, and if the fig leaf had not been there, then they would have tried to put another fig leaf there."

 

Mr Blix added that the weapon inspectors were "pretty close" to showing that after 700 inspections, that there were no WMDs.

 

Cabinet support

 

Conservative MP Richard Ottoway, a member of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, said Mr Blair's comments were a "cynical ploy to soften up public opinion" before his appearance at the Iraq Inquiry.

 

Reg Keys: "I think he's trying to soften his approach to make himself look less guilty"

 

Mr Ottoway added that Mr Blair had misled parliament on "more than one occasion" and that people would be "dismayed" that what was the "most significant foreign affairs initiative since World War II had been debated on a false premise".

 

He added that some MPs may had made a different decision had they known the "full unvarnished truth".

 

Former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell agreed, saying he would have failed to obtain the support of the House of Commons.

 

Reg Keys, the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq in 2003, said he was "absolutely flabbergasted" at Mr Blair's statement and that he thought Mr Blair was trying to "struggling to find some moral high ground in order to justify the total farce of the Iraq invasion".

 

And Carol Turner of the Stop the War Coalition said it was "extraordinary" that Mr Blair was admitting that he was prepared to tailor his arguments to fit the circumstances.

 

"It's not a matter of applauding his honesty now; it's a matter of attacking his lack of honesty and integrity in the circumstances."

Edited December 12, 200915 yr by Crazy Chris-Tmas

Well I for one think Tony was right and made the right decision to get rid of an evil tyrant. He doesn't deserve all the stick he's getting. We should instead be thanking him and Dubya for ridding the world of an evil man. Others here will no doubt disagree.

Edited December 12, 200915 yr by Crazy Chris-Tmas

Well I for one think Tony was right and made the right decision to get rid of an evil tyrant. He doesn't deserve all the stick he's getting. Others here will no doubt disagree.

 

Iraq really is a safer place now without Saddam Hussein isn't it :rolleyes:

 

More Iraqi people have died since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003 including those murdered in shock and awe than died in the previous 6 years under Saddam Hussein

 

Saddam Hussein a secular muslim who hated radical islam and allowed alcohol, nightclubs, casinos and western pop music has been replaced by a shi'ite regime that believes in strict islamic rule and sharia law (something Hussein banned) and in coming years will be the next taliban

 

Don't get me wrong I am not a Saddam Hussein fanboy but the region and his people are better off with him than what has happened since

 

And if you think it was about anything other than OIL you are seriously gullible

Edited December 12, 200915 yr by B.A Baracus

Iraq really is a safer place now without Saddam Hussein isn't it :rolleyes:

 

More Iraqi people have died since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003 including those murdered in shock and awe than died in the previous 6 years under Saddam Hussein

 

Saddam Hussein a secular muslim who hated radical islam and allowed alcohol, nightclubs, casinos and western pop music has been replaced by a shi'ite regime that believes in strict islamic rule and sharia law (something Hussein banned) and in coming years will be the next taliban

 

Don't get me wrong I am not a Saddam Hussein fanboy but the region and his people are better off with him than what has happened since

 

And if you think it was about anything other than OIL you are seriously gullible

 

i dont agree, in the long term anyway.

Well I for one think Tony was right and made the right decision to get rid of an evil tyrant. He doesn't deserve all the stick he's getting. We should instead be thanking him and Dubya for ridding the world of an evil man. Others here will no doubt disagree.

 

it wasnt 'our' job to do it, and we shouldnt have done it without UN backing, it should have been UN lead, not usa/uk.

 

the whole premis for the war was to remove the supposed threat from weapons of mass destruction, if it is proved that blair/bush KNEW there were none then they should both be tried as war criminals. have you any idea how many people have DIED as a result of their decision. it was an unjust war, they are murderers.

i dont agree, in the long term anyway.

 

Hussein was a nasty piece of work but his secular regime was a good "buffer" in the region against the seemingly real threat which is Iran but now Iraq and Iran regimes are pretty much singing from the same hymnsheet in terms of islam so the loss of a secular regime and replacing it with strong islamic principles will I think in the long term cause more instability in the region

 

Hussein hated Al Qaeda and everything they stand for and had Abu Nidal shot because he was trying to incite islamic fundamentalism in Iraq, Hussein had women and christians in his cabinet which will probably never happen again in our lifetime in the region

 

I don't mourn him as a person, he was a highly unpleasant character but his secular beliefs were a good thing for the region I think

 

Blair and Bush should be swinging from the same gallows as Hussein

Hussein was a nasty piece of work but his secular regime was a good "buffer" in the region against the seemingly real threat which is Iran but now Iraq and Iran regimes are pretty much singing from the same hymnsheet in terms of islam so the loss of a secular regime and replacing it with strong islamic principles will I think in the long term cause more instability in the region

 

Hussein hated Al Qaeda and everything they stand for and had Abu Nidal shot because he was trying to incite islamic fundamentalism in Iraq, Hussein had women and christians in his cabinet which will probably never happen again in our lifetime in the region

 

I don't mourn him as a person, he was a highly unpleasant character but his secular beliefs were a good thing for the region I think

 

Blair and Bush should be swinging from the same gallows as Hussein

 

fair play

 

truth is we will never know for sure just how things would have been in iraq if we hadnt invaded...

it wasnt 'our' job to do it, and we shouldnt have done it without UN backing, it should have been UN lead, not usa/uk.

 

the whole premis for the war was to remove the supposed threat from weapons of mass destruction, if it is proved that blair/bush KNEW there were none then they should both be tried as war criminals. have you any idea how many people have DIED as a result of their decision. it was an unjust war, they are murderers.

I doubt Blair actually knew there were no WMD. However, he was so hell-bent on getting rid of Saddam that he didn't ask too many questions. If he had asked the right questions and then tried to justify war anyway, I suspect he would have lost. He may even have struggled to get a majority in the cabinet, let alone the House of Commons.

it wasnt 'our' job to do it, and we shouldnt have done it without UN backing, it should have been UN lead, not usa/uk.

 

 

Yes I agree with you 100% Rob. However the UN were useless wimps and chickened out of doing anything so Bush and Blair had to stand up and have their countries do it instead. Of course it would have been preferable for the UN to assemble a Task Force from many countries to get rid of Saddam.

Edited December 13, 200915 yr by Crazy Chris-Tmas

I doubt Blair actually knew there were no WMD.

 

 

I don't think he actually knew there were none but probably had an idea they wouldn't find any.

I doubt Blair actually knew there were no WMD.

 

then he should have done ... that was his reason for going to war, not to topple a despot.

 

Yes I agree with you 100% Rob. However the UN were useless wimps and chickened out of doing anything so Bush and Blair had to stand up and have their countries do it instead. Of course it would have been preferable for the UN to assemble a Task Force from many countries to get rid of Saddam.

 

no excuse.... we are not the worlds police, it was the UN's responsibility, not ours alone.

Iraq really is a safer place now without Saddam Hussein isn't it :rolleyes:

 

More Iraqi people have died since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003 including those murdered in shock and awe than died in the previous 6 years under Saddam Hussein

 

Saddam Hussein a secular muslim who hated radical islam and allowed alcohol, nightclubs, casinos and western pop music has been replaced by a shi'ite regime that believes in strict islamic rule and sharia law (something Hussein banned) and in coming years will be the next taliban

 

Don't get me wrong I am not a Saddam Hussein fanboy but the region and his people are better off with him than what has happened since

 

And if you think it was about anything other than OIL you are seriously gullible

And why precisely? The main motivating factor behind the vast majority of the violence since 2004 has been the mass privatisations which have funnelled all of the wealth out of Iraq straight into the coffers of American firms (at great cost to the American government, ironically enough, which has subsidised these firms by billions in order that they, er, promote the idea of the completely market-oriented state...). By firing essentially all Iraqi workers and making basic provisions unaffordable for them, as well as not even FINISHING the vast majority of the projects they were tasked with (due to the monopoly of each company in their own sector, which applies for essentially every sector you can think of, and the rape of Iraqi industry due to the removal of all corporate safeguards immediately after the end of the war), do you really think it's any surprise most of them have turned to the religious authorities such as Moqtada al-Sadr, when they're the only people providing affordable/free food/water/etc. whilst the firms cannibalise the nation?

I'm not particularly willing to ascribe the blame to Blair for this one. I'm of the opinion that the man is a complete fool and went to war for the sake of being on the right side of history (doubtless he thought the element of removing Saddam would've completely negated whatever happened in the years ahead...), with maybe pressure from the oil industry. I don't however think he expected Bush and his cronies to hijack the whole scheme and enforce the market fundamentalist shock doctrine, moreover that the Iraqis, to their eternal credit, refuse to take it lying down...

Well, this is as good as a confession that Blair is a lying c/unt and warmonger.... He should be swinging from the same gallows as Hussein did IMHO... Same for Bush Jr, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld... They're all murderers, liars and warmongers.... Yeah, Saddam was a nasty piece of work, but what's the point of just being a murderer just like he is and then claiming to take the "moral high ground"... Absolute bullsh!t.... And absolute hypocrisy... You dont stop murder with murder..... And let's be under no illusion that without the second UN sanction, this is precisely what it was.... The illegal invasion of Iraq without UN approval is what led directly to the terrorist attacks in London on July 7th... Al Qaeda had very little support or sympathisers in the UK until February 2003.... The Americans are fond of saying "what goes around comes around", well I think that saying is very apt of 7/7... Just as the IRA stepped up the campaign in the 70s after Bloody Sunday, it "came around" again after murdering almost 30,000 Iraqis in two nights of "Shock and Awe".. Frankly, I think we've gotten off very lightly....

 

Saddam was no possible threat to us, nor America, maybe a vague one to Israel, but frankly, they kind of deserve to be hated anyway the way they act with their racism, fascism and their oppression of the Palestinians... Saddam was NOT our problem, supposedly the "problem" is Bin Laden and the Taliban isn't it...?? After all the bloody Yanks made such a big fuss after 9/11 about this being a "war on terror".. What a crock of sh!te that was.... First the Yanks claimed that Saddam was involved in the planning of 9/11, then it was WMDs and then it became about "regime change", the reasons for the invasion changed more often than the weather during a British summertime, none of these c/unts could keep any consistency..... <_<

 

Saddam should have been dealt with by the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Iranians and the Turks, if anyone.... And I agree with Craig, his removal has led to more extremism in the region itself... People seem to have VERY short memories here, Saddam was the one keeping the Iranians at bay from dominating the entire region in the 1980s, none of those b/astards in Washington, Langley and Whitehall had any problems with his methods then.... <_<

 

Like I say, sheer fukkin' HYPOCRISY.....

"Meanwhile, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, backed Mr Blair's stance

 

The foreign minister, a member of a government brought into being as a result of the invasion, was a senior Kurdish official during the 1990s.

 

In 1988 Saddam attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq using chemical weapons.

 

Mr Zebari told the BBC: "As Iraqis who have gone through the suffering and the agony of Saddam Hussein's regime, we support Tony Blair's statement.

 

"I believe it was worth it. I believe Saddam Hussein's regime was an affront to the international community, to the international consciousness because of the atrocities, the crimes, he has committed."

 

 

What's your view on this then Scott, or anyone else wanting Blair to go to the gallows?

Edited December 13, 200915 yr by Crazy Chris-Tmas

And why precisely? The main motivating factor behind the vast majority of the violence since 2004 has been the mass privatisations which have funnelled all of the wealth out of Iraq straight into the coffers of American firms (at great cost to the American government, ironically enough, which has subsidised these firms by billions in order that they, er, promote the idea of the completely market-oriented state...). By firing essentially all Iraqi workers and making basic provisions unaffordable for them, as well as not even FINISHING the vast majority of the projects they were tasked with (due to the monopoly of each company in their own sector, which applies for essentially every sector you can think of, and the rape of Iraqi industry due to the removal of all corporate safeguards immediately after the end of the war), do you really think it's any surprise most of them have turned to the religious authorities such as Moqtada al-Sadr, when they're the only people providing affordable/free food/water/etc. whilst the firms cannibalise the nation?

 

Spot on Tyron... The post-invasion has led to a situation similar to that in post-civil war America... The corporations basically "carpet-bagging" whatever the hell they can get.... The Oil Companies, people like Haliburton, the Private "security" Firms (read "Mercenaries") are a shower of absolute b/astards, the greed of these people knows absolutely no bounds nor shame... Anyone who supported this invasion should be ashamed of themselves when one looks at the way things have turned out... And it was all BY DESIGN people.... Do you honestly believe that those in Washington and Langley were really so stupid as to allow it all to go this way purely by accident.....? HELL NO.... The US Administration LET these greedy Corporations rob the Iraqi people blind.....

 

This is a WAR CRIME, simple as.....

"Meanwhile, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, backed Mr Blair's stance

 

The foreign minister, a member of a government brought into being as a result of the invasion, was a senior Kurdish official during the 1990s.

 

In 1988 Saddam attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq using chemical weapons.

 

Mr Zebari told the BBC: "As Iraqis who have gone through the suffering and the agony of Saddam Hussein's regime, we support Tony Blair's statement.

 

"I believe it was worth it. I believe Saddam Hussein's regime was an affront to the international community, to the international consciousness because of the atrocities, the crimes, he has committed."

What's your view on this then Scott, or anyone else wanting Blair to go to the gallows?

 

He has his own interests in saying this Chris.... I wouldn't trust the new Iraqi "government" any more than Hussein's lot..... Or indeed any more than the absolutely corrupt regime in power in Afghanistan at this moment in time.....

 

Craig was spot on in his original post, the people in charge now are extremist Shi'ite Muslims.... Yeah, a real good trade....

then he should have done ... that was his reason for going to war, not to topple a despot.

That's why I went on to say that Blair didn't ask enough questions - either because he'd already made up his mind or was concerned that he wouldn't get the answers he wanted.

Spot on Tyron... The post-invasion has led to a situation similar to that in post-civil war America... The corporations basically "carpet-bagging" whatever the hell they can get.... The Oil Companies, people like Haliburton, the Private "security" Firms (read "Mercenaries") are a shower of absolute b/astards, the greed of these people knows absolutely no bounds nor shame... Anyone who supported this invasion should be ashamed of themselves when one looks at the way things have turned out... And it was all BY DESIGN people.... Do you honestly believe that those in Washington and Langley were really so stupid as to allow it all to go this way purely by accident.....? HELL NO.... The US Administration LET these greedy Corporations rob the Iraqi people blind.....

 

This is a WAR CRIME, simple as.....

They didn't just LET them, they directly FUNDED them to do so!

It comes as no surprise to me that Blair wanted to get rid of Saddam whether there were WMD or not, to me he wanted to leave his mark on the world as a leader who had led his Country into war. He had seen the 2 previous PM's, Maggie with the Falklands, and Major with the 1st Gulf war, and he thought I could do with that kind of thing on my CV. So when Bush jr floated the idea, I'm pretty certain he made his mind up there and then.

 

To me he is a war criminal, nothing less and should be put on trial with his American chum(p). (Allegedly!)

 

To try and say he was getting rid of a tirant, then what about Mugabe,Kim Jong Il etc, oh wait a minute....no oil in dem places.