Tony Blair

It's just the staggering F***ing arrogance that he thought he could go into war and everything would end up all sweetness and roses. After all he had witnessed in Yugoslavia. The idea that it's because there wasn't enough planning for the aftermath is just nonsense. It's a war. You're sticking your big size 13s into a massive tinderbox. You don't get nice shiny shopping malls and a superb inclusive education system from it. You get violence and misery that festers for decades if not centuries.

I was 18 at the time or so. I was an idiot then and I'm nearly as much of an idiot now. And I knew it would be a disaster.

Oh and generation rent thanks you for your domestic policies.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
Not going to lie, had to google FUBAR :)

I think John Major started the peace process and Blair picked up the baton and ran with it.
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Yes. Major gets little of the plaudits, but a great deal of what was to become the GFA was in the Downing St Declaration and the Framework documents.

Not to say that it didn't take a great deal of ability from Blair, Ahern, Hume, Trimble et al to land it and make it stick.

23 years on it is truly an astonishing achievement.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
You get violence and misery that festers for decades if not centuries.
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It was already violence and misery, there is an opportunity cost of not taking action in lives. If you didn't want us to go in, you are saying you are comfortable with Saddam gassing his own citizens, starting wars with neighbours, and hanging people that didn't like him or have the same religion as him. You are happy to give a green light to more of the same.

Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
Oh and generation rent thanks you for your domestic policies.
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That started long before Blair, it's the natural outcome of neo-conservatism which had run for 20 years before blair and 12 after him
 
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BoroMart said:
If you didn't want us to go in, you are saying you are comfortable with Saddam gassing his own citizens, starting wars with neighbours, and hanging people that didn't like him or have the same religion as him. You are happy to give a green light to more of the same.
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Not wanting to invade a country and then leave it in complete chaos, with the ensuing ongoing aftermath, doesn't in any way mean someone has to have been happy with the actions of Saddam Hussein :whistle:
 
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BoroMart said:
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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Saddam was a murderous tyrant who was a constant threat to both his own people and the wider region. I have no qualms about his removal per se. I also agree that there was a strong case, at the time, to suspect Saddam had WMD because (a) he told us and (b) we had the receipts for the ingredients/components! I also believe Blair thought he was doing the right thing, ends justify the means etc. In my view (and, obviously, with the benefit of hindsight) he was far too gung ho in making the case and negligent of the consequences. Blair had messianic tendencies, particularly towards the end of his term, but was very capable and had many solid achievements. Johnson is a lying, narcissistic, friendless piece of shyte.
 
JackG said:
Saddam was a murderous tyrant who was a constant threat to both his own people and the wider region. I have no qualms about his removal per se. I also agree that there was a strong case, at the time, to suspect Saddam had WMD because (a) he told us and (b) we had the receipts for the ingredients/components! I also believe Blair thought he was doing the right thing, ends justify the means etc. In my view (and, obviously, with the benefit of hindsight) he was far too gung ho in making the case and negligent of the consequences. Blair had messianic tendencies, particularly towards the end of his term, but was very capable and had many solid achievements. Johnson is a lying, narcissistic, friendless piece of shyte.
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An argument could be made that that part of the world has become a lot more unstable since his death.

He definitely needed removing but there never seemed to be any plan following it.
 
Randy said:
An argument could be made that that part of the world has become a lot more unstable since his death.

He definitely needed removing but there never seemed to be any plan following it.
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agreed, that was the real failure, to not plan properly for what to do afterwards. That was the real failure. Saddam had to go, Thatcher and Bush senior screwed it up badly first time by letting him off the hook which led to him brutally murdering more people and letting his people suffer under UN sanctions, for his own ego.
 
Anyone remotely interested in the Iraq invasion (I hesitate to call it war when there was only ever one side in it) should listen to David Dimbleby's podcast the Fault Line. It goes into brilliant detail on the politics at play leading up to Iraq. It's unbelievable that the key so-called intelligence for justification was a bloke code named Curveball.

Curveball was an Iraqi leaving in Germany who had been interviewed by German Intelligence and claimed to be an ex-Chemical Engineer. He told the Germans that Saddam had mobile labs with nuclear and biological weapons. Those claims couldn't be confirmed and many suspected they were completely false.

The like of d*ck Cheney and Rumsfeld took those claims and pressed their case for war. The Americans were going in regardless of what Blair did. He was almost swept along by it all.
 
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