Michael
Dec 23rd 2009, 11:39 AM
Sceptics expected a whitewash, Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes, but Britain’s Iraq war inquiry has fatally wounded the case for liberal interventions past and future.
When the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced the establishment of an inquiry into the Iraq war in June, cynics in London said that it would be a pointless sham telling us nothing we didn’t know already, or even an “establishment stitch-up” in the words of David Cameron, the Conservative leader. Past experience suggested that he might be right.
But with Sir John Chilcot’s hearings less than two weeks old, we have already learnt a great deal. That is partly because, despite Brown’s original intention, the inquiry is being held in public, but also for another reason. What has emerged over and again from the QE II Conference Centre is the sound of scores being settled. Yes, the establishment is in action, all right – and getting its own back on Tony Blair.
Source (http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091203/REVIEW/712039996/1008/)
After this hearing, it wouldn't surprise me to see Tony Blair end up on the trash heap of British history as the most hated PM in British history.
While I always liked/admired Tony Blair, I must say that it seems like he suffered from some mental illness the way he marched Britain into the Iraq war in 2003 despite all sensible people opposing it. When your only political allies are American warmongers, you really have to question the basis of your decisions. Blair didn't - he just took a page from GW Bush's playbook and doubled down on the propaganda.
It was a bad decision then and it is an even uglier decision looking back now.
Good to see the Brits airing out the laundry here. Nothing worse than sweeping this shit under the carpet as it done in the USA. Because of this, chances are the Americans will repeat the enterprise - it is very doubtful that the Brits will.
When the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced the establishment of an inquiry into the Iraq war in June, cynics in London said that it would be a pointless sham telling us nothing we didn’t know already, or even an “establishment stitch-up” in the words of David Cameron, the Conservative leader. Past experience suggested that he might be right.
But with Sir John Chilcot’s hearings less than two weeks old, we have already learnt a great deal. That is partly because, despite Brown’s original intention, the inquiry is being held in public, but also for another reason. What has emerged over and again from the QE II Conference Centre is the sound of scores being settled. Yes, the establishment is in action, all right – and getting its own back on Tony Blair.
Source (http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091203/REVIEW/712039996/1008/)
After this hearing, it wouldn't surprise me to see Tony Blair end up on the trash heap of British history as the most hated PM in British history.
While I always liked/admired Tony Blair, I must say that it seems like he suffered from some mental illness the way he marched Britain into the Iraq war in 2003 despite all sensible people opposing it. When your only political allies are American warmongers, you really have to question the basis of your decisions. Blair didn't - he just took a page from GW Bush's playbook and doubled down on the propaganda.
It was a bad decision then and it is an even uglier decision looking back now.
Good to see the Brits airing out the laundry here. Nothing worse than sweeping this shit under the carpet as it done in the USA. Because of this, chances are the Americans will repeat the enterprise - it is very doubtful that the Brits will.