Tony Blair defends war legacy, cites 9/11

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Tony Blair defends war legacy, cites 9/11
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:27:08 GMT

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=1 ... =351020601



Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now envoy to the quartet of Middle East peacemakers, testified at the Iraq war inquiry on Friday.

Almost seven years after he joined the US-led invasion of Iraq, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his legacy before an official inquiry Friday in the face of criticism that he misled the nation with his war justification.

The inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, examines the legitimacy of the UK involvement in the Iraq war.

Blair arrived two hours early to attend six hours of scheduled hearing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in central London, as he tried to avoid protesters and media outside.

Several hundred protestors gathered outside the building, shouting "Blair lied — thousands died," as the inquiry got underway.

"We haven't come here expecting an apology," one protester, Gary Walker, 31, told the New York Times. "But it's important to show seven years on that people still care about the illegal war."

The inquiry began by pressing Blair over exaggerating and embellishing the content of intelligence reports to convince his government and the British public that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — a claim that was refuted shortly after the invasion.

In his defense, Blair said he was convinced after the September 11 attacks, Saddam Hossein, the former Iraqi dictator, posed as a greater threat by furnishing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

"If September 11 had not happened, our assessment would have been different. But after September 11, our view and that of the Americans changed, and changed dramatically," Blair said at the opening of his testimony.

''It wasn't that objectively he (Saddam) had done more, it was that our perception of the risk had shifted,'' Blair said. ''If those people inspired by this religious fanaticism could have killed 30,000, they would have. From that moment Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq ... all of this had to be brought to an end."

''The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful, clear and unremitting message that after Sept. 11 if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop.''

Blair has long argued that he had to act in line with Washington's decision in order to disarm the former Iraqi leader. However, his relations with the then US President George W. Bush came under scrutiny after the fall of Baghdad revealed that no weapons of mass destruction were found to justify the rationale for war.

The White House is yet to decide whether to ask President Bush to account for his war decisions. Many critics have assailed both Britain and the United States for what they call their intention of taking control of Iraq's vast oil supplies.

Saba Jaiwad, an Iraqi protester who opposed the war, said Blair, now envoy to the quartet of Middle East peacemakers, should be taken to The Hague to "face criminal charged because he has committed crimes against the Iraqi people."

''The Iraqi people are having to live every day with aggression, division, and atrocities,'' Jaiwad said.

SES/MD
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