[Closed] Blair - Chilcot inquiry

venue: chester zoo, cant reccomend highly enough, excelent staff, and the lions roaring was quite cool too

brown shoes better than boring black

curly perm! thats my natural hair, just tied back
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[i]The Daily Mash are already on the case... [/i]

Oh it's all OK then, democracy and justice are saved 🙄

Nice basket.

[i]Oh it's all OK then, democracy and justice are saved[/i]

Yeah cos The Sun did so much better with it's screaming headlines of "SADDAM COULD STRIKE IN 45 MINUTES!!"

🙄

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Not for the first time the media did the work of the Government (however unintentionally).
Blair said at the inquiry earlier that "he didn't really focus" on the newspaper claims since he'd only mentioned it once in PMQ's, he conceded that the headlines should have been corrected.

I totally agree in the fact that the war against Iraq was illegal and all the crap about WMD just didn't exist and those that told the facts were threatened etc etc. But "untouchable" politicians will always believe wars create jobs, countries desire weapons and the economy is better when there is a war. One other fact is after Iraq gassed it's own people, tortured there own people, killed thousands who spoke agaisnt Saddams regieme - did they have an inquest after??????? No - and they never would while he was in power. I know it stinks but unless Saddam was removed by force things could have been a hell of a lot worse regarding terrorism.

So, he would not have proceeded without the correct legal advice...Hmm. I think that means he waited until Goldsmith "changed his mind" and came up with the [i]correct[/i] legal advice..!

Interestingly, a Dutch inquiry has just found that there was no legal grounds for the war.

In the 30 mins i have watched Tony(finest Pm we have ever had)has stood his ground and said nothing new and there has not been the slightest hint as though he was in trouble with any of the questions.

Its the intelligience corp that should be in the dock!

Rich

>inquest after??????? No - and they never would while he was in power
That's a bit irrelevant - one woudn't exactly expect the average despot to behave like one's own elected representatives. The issue's about Bliars behavior, given that we have an elected dictatorship...ahem, government.

>things could have been a hell of a lot worse regarding terrorism.

Eh? - would you like to justify that ?

Unless you're referring to something else, the Saddam<>Al kaida link was never there and was disproven years ago, despite Bush's assertions in alledging one to help his argument for an invasion post-9/11 (tho' equally the previous Clinton administration had also been eyeing up Saddam to one degree or another). Saddam was a nutter, but pretty much in his own backyard or that of neigbouring states.

So, will the protestors make their stated attempt at a citizen's arrest now?

Anyone know the rough cost of having had a helicopter on hover/station above Westminster all day, by the way?

Quite fascinating, listened for most of the day.

Hadge - in order to save them we had to kill them?

millions of Iraqis have died as a result of the two gulf wars and the sanctions in between. Fr more than Saddam killed. child mortality rates have rocketed. Life expectancy is down, disease is much more prevalent.

Th threat of terrorism is worse. Our intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has create the breeding grounds for terrorism

the end justifies the means only works at all if the end result is good. It is not good in this case and shows

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Its funny, When Blair was first elected Labour leader I thought he would turn out to be a modern equivalent of Harold Wilson - a bit policy lite, a bit fly, but a shrewd operator.
When Wilson was asked to send British troops to help America with Vietnam, he had the good sense to say "no, thanks"
Well, Iraq, and Afghanistan were America's wars and I'm still surprised to this day that TB didnt follow that example, maybe the intervention in the Balkans went to his head " god has chosen me to be a world statesman"?
Maybe he had visions of Britain being an imperial power again.
Whatever, as he wont meet justice in the next life, It would be nice if he faced it in this one.

So far as being 'above the law' is concerned, parliament voted and the war was waged.

Parliament voted, based on the false information and lies which they were told.

Would you uphold a conviction if the prosecution had lied to the jury ?

The only way the Iraq war could have been legal under international law, was if the authority had been given by the UN. How the UK parliament voted is irrelevant.

Blair claimed that he was carrying out the wishes of the UN. But he refused to put it to a second UN vote, because he damn well knew that the UN would not back him.

He was perfectly aware that he did not have the support of the UN when he told the UN inspectors to get of Iraq because him and his mate Bush, were going to start bombing. In other words, he knew very well that he was violating international law.

All this nonsense concerning the Att. General and whether the war was lawful in a red herring. All Blair had to do was put it to the UN for a second vote, which could have [i]unambiguously[/i] given the authorisation for an attack on Iraq.

In fact this is exactly what Blair intended to do. Until at the last minute, he realised that the UN would not support him. So he decided that he was above international law.

No one should be allowed to get away with that........the whole purpose of the UN being set up after World War 2, was to avoid wars at all possible costs.

What an actor. Surely Blair missed his true vocation, the silver screen. His performance today was worthy of an oscar 😡 .

The enquiry has been hopeless - they should have had somebody COMPETENT to cross-examine Blair and Campbell and expose their lies.

Instead we got a buddy-buddy old boy network waste of time.

Blair will carry on with his sanctimonious self belief intact.

Did we expect anything else? 😕

Some hilariously rabid Tory/naive liberal/potty views on here as usual - nice to see standards being maintained. Although I think there's a valid point here

Its the intelligience corp that should be in the dock!

Always wondered though - what would have happened when Uday Hussain took over from his dad? Well, maybe sanctions would've worked 😆 FFS c'mon wake up!

Maybe if someone had had the balls to have taken decisive action against Hitler in the mid-1930's we wouldn't have had WW2.

bowglie-by your reasoning we ought to invade Zimbabwe, Iran, Korea, China, Borneo and Russia then?

Maybe if someone had had the balls to have taken decisive action against Hitler in the mid-1930's

As a "[i]hilariously rabid Tory[/i]" ........can I ask why you think that a regime so weak after years of bombings and crippling sanctions, that it is unable to threaten the north [u]of it's own country[/u], compares with the military might of the Third Reich and it's quest for global dominance ?

Sounds like rather a "[i]potty view[/i]" ........to use your term.

BTW, the "[i]intelligience corp[/i]" probably isn't in the dock because they had warned Blair that there were very serious doubts about whether Iraq had WMDs. Despite the fact that Blair lied to parliament and said that,
it was, quote : "[i]beyond doubt[/i]".

Rabid Tories = Robin Cook, George Galloway, Claire Short etc.

bowglie-by your reasoning we ought to invade Zimbabwe, Iran, Korea, China, Borneo and Russia then?

Hmm, maybe I've been exposed to too much simplistic UK media shite - or maybe the Saddam Hussein thing was a unique scenario?

can I ask why you think that a regime so weak after years of bombings and crippling sanctions, that it is unable to threaten the north of it's own country, compares with the military might of the Third Reich and it's quest for global dominance ?

I suggest you read something about the late 19th and 20th century of Iraq and Saddam's political ideology and heroes. Oh, and then live in the Middle East for a few years so that you have an understanding of Arabic (and especially male Arabic) culture - then you'd appreciate some of the reasons why there was no option but to stop Saddams dynasty.

If Saddam was so weak and relatively harmless, why was he increasing the range on missiles best suited as delivery systems for biological weapons, and why was he still employing one of the Worlds leading bio-weapons specialists - oh, and why was he still trying to aquire equipment for uranium enrichment? I wonder what the outcome would have been if he'd lobbed a few into Israel to kick thing off a bit?

As far as the intelligence goes, I think it's very interesting how some of it isn't being revealed to the public during this enquiry.

Oh, and BTW, didn't the Tories support the invasion of Iraq? Hmm...wonder what they'd have done?

Oh, and BTW, didn't the Tories support the invasion of Iraq? Hmm...wonder what they'd have done?

I believe those in the House did, but under the guise of regime change, not under the guise of a lie about us being 45 minutes from DOOM! DOOM, I TELL YOU! DOOM!

Cant say you weren't warned can you?

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why was he increasing the range on missiles best suited as delivery systems for biological weapons, and why was he still employing one of the Worlds leading bio-weapons specialists - oh, and why was he still trying to aquire equipment for uranium enrichment?

People like you just can't help themselves - can they ?

You believe that if you keep bashing out endlessly, the same, tired, nonsensical, line - that Saddam was developing biological and nuclear weapons, it will somehow make it "true". Despite all that we now know.

Not [i]one shred[/i] of damning evidence has emerged since the invasion of Iraq (he didn't even have the chemical weapons which he had previously had, and which the Americans had sold him) But that won't stop you from desperately hanging on to the New Labour lies.

[i]"I suggest you read something about the late 19th and 20th century of Iraq "[/i]

And I suggest you get in touch with reality.

You could start off by getting to grips with the "facts" 💡