It was all about Blair: The Guardian Comment is Free
The Guardian: Comment is Free
The limitations of the Chilcot inquiry are obvious. It is a group of establishment trusties, evidence will not be on oath and the government is doing its best to keep key documents from the inquiry. Even yesterday, in the very first week of the inquiry, former British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, mentioned four key documents that he knew existed but the Chilcot inquiry had not seen.
But despite everything, the truth is coming to light. One key revelation from Meyer's evidence is that Washington decided they wanted to invade Iraq and then scrabbled around for supporting evidence. As he put it: "The real problem, which I did draw several times to the attention of London, was that the contingency military timetable had been decided before the UN inspectors went in under Hans Blix." In other words, the inspections were a charade. The Americans were never much interested in the results. They had made up their minds.
Worse is what Meyer's evidence tells you about Tony Blair. It is a cliche nowadays to describe Blair as a liar. But I knew he could be a stranger to the truth before he became prime minister. In the 90s I served as an elected member of Labour's national executive (something that the Blairites put a stop to by the simple expedient of changing the rules), and saw how he would mislead trade union colleagues. So it is not surprising that he bent the truth trying to sell the war to the House of Commons. But Meyer's evidence to Chilcot points to something more.
There is an argument (which I do not accept) that, distasteful as the war was, the paramount thing was to remain a key ally of the United States because of the political leverage that gave us on other issues. This is certainly one of the arguments that Blair used to persuade gullible Labour colleagues in the final frantic arm-twisting days before the key vote in parliament.
Yet Meyer makes it clear that Blair's claims of exerting a restraining influence were entirely for domestic consumption. Meyer says: "We could have achieved more by playing a tougher role ... if we had made it a condition of our participation in any military operation that indeed a major effort should be made with the Arab/Israel dispute and ... detailed planning for what would happen if and when we remove Saddam Hussein, there could have been a very different outcome. "
Blair's support for Bush has made him fabulously popular in America, particularly corporate America, and he is now making millions out of that popularity. It would be unfair to ascribe his support for the war to an anticipation of this lucrative outcome. But what does seem true is that, for Blair, standing on a podium shoulder to shoulder with the swaggering George Bush was dizzying stuff. So dizzying that everything else was subordinated.
The legality of the war does not appear to have detained Blair. The unfortunate Lord Goldsmith was pressured to give the legal stamp of approval to a war about which the world knows he had deep misgivings. Trading support for the war in return for real progress in the Middle East was also not Blair's concern, as Meyer has made plain. (This makes Blair's current role as Middle East envoy even more absurd.)
The disastrous humanitarian results for the people of Iraq were also something that did not apparently concern Blair overmuch. In the end, it was all about Blair.
I knew at the time that it was an illegal and misconceived war and was proud to vote against it. Everything that is coming out of the Chilcot inquiry confirms that view.
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