Tony Blair’s long-awaited memoir says the former British prime minister doesn’t regret the Iraq war — although he wept for the victims — and carries revelations about the politician’s alcohol use, his interactions with the queen and his testy relationship with his successor.
Tony Blair’s A Journey was stirring political passions as it hit bookstores yesterday, with excerpts revealing that the former British prime minister cried for soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq, but still thought it was right to invade Iraq and topple then-president Saddam Hussein.
The decision to go to war remains Blair’s most divisive legacy.
PHOTO: EPA
In excerpts from the book released by the publisher late on Tuesday, Blair says: “I ... regret with every fiber of my being the loss of those who died.”
“Tears, though there have been many, do not encompass it,” he says.
However, he says, “on the basis of what we do know now, I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him and that, terrible though the aftermath was, the reality of Saddam and his sons in charge of Iraq would at least arguably be much worse.”
“I can’t regret the decision to go to war,” he says.
Blair also reopens domestic political wounds, saying he found his rival and successor as prime minister Gordon Brown difficult and maddening.
British booksellers are reporting heavy interest in the book, for which Blair was paid an estimated £4.6 million (US$7.5 million).
He’s donating the proceeds to a charity for injured troops.
Billed by publisher Random House as a “frank, open” account of life at the top, A Journey is being published in a dozen countries, alongside an e-book and an audio version read by Blair himself. It’s in the top 10 on Amazon’s British best-seller list — though it’s only 4,000 on the retailer’s US site.
Blair — who was scheduled to be in Washington on publication day, attending Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in his role as an international Middle East envoy — has said he “set out to write a book which describes the human as much as the political dimensions of life as prime minister.”
The book promises to give readers behind-the-curtain insights into major world events from the death of Princess Diana to the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq.
It is unlikely to resolve the conflicting views and emotions Blair evokes.
For many Americans, he remains a well-regarded ally who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in the fight against international terrorism. He’s scheduled to receive the 2010 Liberty Medal from former US president Bill Clinton in Philadelphia on Sept. 13.
Anti-war groups say they will picket Blair’s book signings in Dublin on Saturday and in London on Sept. 8. Both are high-security affairs at which book buyers will have to surrender their bags, cameras and mobile phones — and are barred from asking for personal dedications.
Blair, 57, stepped down in June 2007 after a decade that included a historic peace accord in Northern Ireland, the deeply unpopular war in Iraq and the continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
He was Labour’s most successful leader for decades, moved the left-leaning party toward the center and brought it back to power after 18 years in opposition.
However, when he left, after years of increasingly open hostility with Brown, his party was divided.
He also details his interaction with Queen Elizabeth II in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death, when support for the British monarchy was at a low ebb. Blair said he tried to get Elizabeth to make a public statement and worried that she found him “presumptuous.” For his part, he said she was “a little haughty.”
Elsewhere, Blair speaks of his relationship with alcohol, saying he drank “a whisky or a gin and tonic before dinner, then one or two glasses of wine.”
Blair said that while he believed he controlled his intake, he had been aware that drink was becoming “a support.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of