Bad Men

The Times front page this morning was dominated by just the one story, under the banner headline, "Blair gave secret promise to Bush over Iraq invasion". Beneath was a picture of Alastair Campbell looking harrassed and guilty. The article itself, which is now buried halfway down the UK news section of the online paper, reveals that this is of course a ridiculous spin on the actual story:

“The Prime Minister wrote quite a lot of notes to the President,” he said. “I would say the tenor of them was that . . . we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed. If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the President.”

Damning or what? Obviously, as Norm points out, this, as both Tony Blair and George Bush knew, but as the combined British press pretend not to know, was no cast-iron guarantee, but an indication of Blair's thinking at the time. Nor is it anything we don't know already, as Blair has never made a secret of his views. Here's John Rentoul - as part of his ongoing Iraq Inquiry Coverage Rebuttal Service:

I do see the problem. "Alastair Campbell says what he has said before" is not much of a headline. Nor is "Tony Blair said in private to George Bush what he said in public". So "Bad man makes secret deal with bad man to do bad stuff" will have to do.

And, more John Rentoul:

[The Telegraph's] Benedict Brogan asks, with the self satisfaction of 95 per cent of our trade:

"Is there anybody left who needs persuading that the Iraq war turned out to be a bad idea with terrible consequences?

Most of the population of Iraq, to begin with.

Comments

[Bob-B]

It is interesting how all those who think the consequences of the Iraq War were terrible never seem to have the time to discuss the consequences of no Iraq War, i.e. of leaving Saddam in charge of Iraq. It's almost as if they are not actually sure that the consequences would have been better.