Tony Blair

Glover_elbow said:
labour did a lot of good things like surestart centres for kids, nhs improvements more investment in education. its a real shame he did what he did in terms of iraq but even as prime minister, i dont think he had much choice i am sure pressure was put on him to follow Americas lead. if he hadnt made that decision he would have to be considered one of the best post war PMs.
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But he lied. The same way in which Johnson has lied.

You cannot criticise one and defend the other, or vice versa.
 
If voting to go to war with Iraq makes you a PM that is unpalatable then I'm sure you will all have voted for Corbyn and against Cameron, May and Johnson?

Any takers to admit that you didn't do this?
 
BoroMart said:
As above how many Iraqi lives were saved by him deposing the brutal murderous saddam? 🤷‍♂️
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I don't know, do you? I'm not sure it's something you can put a figure on But please don't try to make Blair out to be some sort of saviour, when his lies cost the lives of so many.
 
uncle_rico said:
I don't know, do you? I'm not sure it's something you can put a figure on But please don't try to make Blair out to be some sort of saviour, when his lies cost the lives of so many.
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I'm trying to paint a fair and balanced viewpoint. We don't know how many, we do know that Saddam had the blood of at least 2.5mill people on his hand through his dictatorship. He murdered political dissidents, he ethnically cleansed Kurds, he murdered Shia's and oppressed them, he started a war with Iran that was absolutely brutal in terms of lives, and economic damage to the people of those two nations, he invaded a sovereign nation, he fired missiles at another, he used WMDs previously, he threatened to use them again, he set oil fields on fire creating major climate damage, I could go on.

The balanced view is yes, people died as the US and UK invaded Iraq, and far worse the power vacuum plunged the state downwards. But it's also absolutely clear that Saddam would have continued to use death, war, invasion and oppression had he remained in power.

The balanced view is that some lives were saved and some were lost by invading Iraq.

What is the view on the first gulf war? Should we have stayed out of it? Should we have pushed on and deposed him then? If we had removed him first time the Kurds wouldn't have been gassed to death. That is absolute proof that inaction has consequences in lives too. To ignore that is to not present a balanced viewpoint.
 
He keeps himself in the spotlight and there are plenty who hang on his words - unlike Cameron, May, Major, Brown. In 30 years time Johnson we be long forgotten
 
I wasn't opposed to the removal of Saddam; on the contrary - we should have continued to Baghdad the first time around. My first and lesser objection was being taken to war on a blatant and bare-faced lie. Blair has always been a rimmer of the rich and powerful, willing to subjugate his countries interests to those of the US. Less forgivable was the absence of any coherent plan to deal with the aftermath of the invasion. That's what led to the ongoing loss of life.
 
JackG said:
I wasn't opposed to the removal of Saddam; on the contrary - we should have continued to Baghdad the first time around. My first and lesser objection was being taken to war on a blatant and bare-faced lie.
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So this isn't about the concept of invading Iraq, and it isn't about the lives lost, but it's actually about the lie.....or to be more accurate in this situation the exaggerations. Because lets put some facts on the table a) Saddam had previously had weapons of mass destruction, b) he had used these on his own people, c) he had fired missiles at another country to try and start a global war, d) he was making the jobs of weapons inspectors near impossible. So taking those into account, at the time, the idea that he had WMDs wasn't beyond credibility and in the middle of government trying to protect your people and having Bush whispering in your ear, then I believe he did have some concerns if not in the immediate but in the long term that Saddam would cause issues for other countries. I think it was possibly an error of judgement to buy into this conspiracy that they had them, and Saddam himself was partly to blame by messing the weapons inspectors about to give the allusion that there was something to hide. That's how I read it, I don't think Blair wanted to send us into war, I don't think he got off on it like Thatcher seemed to He knew it was unpopular, there had been marches, but he did what he thought was right.

It worked out badly in the end because as you say it was the failure to plan for the vacuum afterwards that really caused problems. We have no idea what Bush said in the private discussions, if Bush gave a credible strategy for post invasion. I think he got played a little by the americans.

Regarding lies, I've got news for you, you're gonna be really angry when you look into 'Boris' and his statements to the parliament, the queen and the public pretty much on a daily basis.
 
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