British Prime Minister Tony Blair firmly denied that the Bush administration signaled just months after Sept. 11 that a decision was made to invade Iraq, saying he was "astonished" by claims that leaked secret memos suggested the US was rushing to war.
In an interview a day after US President George W. Bush delivered a televised defense of the war in Iraq, Blair said defeating the insurgency was crucial to protecting security worldwide, and joined Bush in linking the war with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"What happened for me after Sept. 11 is that the balance of risk changed," said Blair, interviewed on the stone terrace overlooking the garden of his No. 10 Downing Street offices, where policy meetings on Iraq were held before the invasion.
PHOTO: AP
After Sept. 11, it was necessary to "draw a line in the sand here, and the country to do it with was Iraq because they were in breach of UN resolutions going back over many years," he said. "I took the view that if these people ever got hold of nuclear, chemical or biological capability, they would probably use it."
Blair was asked about the leaked memos, which suggest strong concerns in the British government that the Bush administration was determined in 2002 to invade Iraq -- months before the US and Britain unsuccessfully sought UN Security Council approval for military action.
"People say the decision was already taken. The decision was not already taken." Blair said he was "a bit astonished" at the intensive US media coverage about the memos, which included minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top officials at his Downing Street office.
According to the minutes of the meeting, Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of Britain's intelligence service, said the White House viewed military action against then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as inevitable following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush "wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction), read the memo. "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
In the interview, Blair said raising such concerns was a natural part of any examination of the cause for war.
"The trouble with having a political discussion on the basis of things that are leaked is that they are always taken right out of context. Everything else is omitted from the discussion and you end up focusing on a specific document," he said. "It would be absolutely weird if, when the Iraq issue was on the agenda, you were not constantly raising issues, trying to work them out, get them in the right place," he said.
Blair suggested that ensuring victory in Iraq was now more important than debating the case for invasion.
"The most important thing we can do in Iraq is concentrate on the fact ... that what is happening there is a monumental battle that affects our own security," he said. "You've got every bad element in the whole of the Middle East in Iraq trying to stop that country [from getting] on its feet and [becoming] a democracy."
Blair echoed Bush's pledge on Tuesday to keep US forces in Iraq until the fight is won.
"There is only one side to be on now and it is time we got on it and stuck in there and get the job done, and not leave until the job is done," he said.
While Blair's close ties to Bush have cost him with voters at home, he said it's that relationship which allows the countries to talk about tough issues.
"My support for America is not based on you give us support for this and you get that in return," Blair said. "I should only do what is right for Britain. The president should only do what is right for America, and we should both try to do what is right for the world."
That alluded to Blair's ambitious twin goals for next week's G8 summit in Scotland -- reaching consensus on fighting climate change, and greatly boosting aid to Africa. On climate change in particular, Blair said the going may be rough.
"On climate change there obviously has been a disagreement over Kyoto" Blair said referring to the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush administration has rejected.
He said he hoped to reach agreement on moving toward a low-carbon economy that curbs greenhouse gas emissions.
"On Africa, I don't think there is a disagreement about the basic principles of what we are trying to achieve and obviously I hope that by the time we get to the summit next week we have got agreement on the substance of the package," he said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS