Here’s a little more of what Blair actually said from
the Guardian just who exactly does he think he’s fooling?
I think he could just about get away with claiming that he made an honest mistake about WMD but the war was still justified because Saddam wasn’t very nice… but this continued insistence that Saddam had WMD which have somehow managed to vanish without a trace just shows that he has way too much pride and how appalling his judgment is.
People might accept a PM who made an honest mistake (not that I think it was honest) but most don’t like being led by someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality and so much messianic self belief that he refuses to admit he could possibly have made a mistake despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Blair at the liaison committee
Minute-by-minute coverage of the prime minister's biannual grilling by the Commons liaison committee
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Tuesday July 6, 2004
10.45am
The topic moves on to foreign affairs and Iraq. Alan Beith wants to know when Mr Blair spoke to Mr Bush when he demanded the return of the UK detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
"A few weeks ago," reveals Mr Blair. "Guantánamo Bay is an anomaly that one day has to be brought to an end - there's no doubt about that," he adds. But he adds that the UK has to guarantee its own security on their return, and there is a "reason" why some were returned and some were not.
"I do not think the US is being unreasonable" in demanding that some security will be in place before the remaining men are returned to the UK, answers the prime minister.
"I am not yet satisfied that we have the necessary machinery in place," he says, of the remaining detainees. "I would need to be very very clear that there was in place in this country a sufficient infrastructure to protect our own security."
"I have to be careful - I'm not going into their individual cases, but this thing did not arise out of some random event," he says, with respect to the remaining detainees.
Sir George Young says a year ago the prime minister asked the committee to wait and see on Iraqi WMD. "I was very very confident the Iraq Survey Group would find them - I have to accept we haven't found them and we may not find them," concedes Mr Blair, but goes on: "We must not go to the other extreme - they could have been moved, hidden or destroyed." We must wait for the final ISG report.
So was it a mistake to put so much emphasis on WMD and not regime change, queries Sir George.
"Just because we haven't found stockpiles of WMD doesn't mean he was not a threat," insists Mr Blair, but admits a year has passed with no evidence. "I genuinely believed those stockpiles were there."
Did we fight the right war for the wrong reasons, asks Sir George.
"No, I don't accept that," says Mr Blair. "He was a threat in WMD terms," he insists, but again says they could have been "hidden, removed or destroyed".
"Your place in history is secure - you freed a people from a gangster regime," brown-noses Edward Leigh of the public accounts committee, but twists the knife - "will you accept we went to war for the wrong reasons?"
"I don't actually believe he was not a threat in terms of WMD," repeats Mr Blair, "but I have to accept the fact we haven't found them."
Mr Leigh quotes the embarrassing tribute from Mr Bush to the prime minister of being a "stand-up kinda guy", but asks why Mr Blair complimented the president on pushing forward the Middle East settlement - "hasn't he let you down?"
We wouldn't have got the progress on Libya, Iran an North Korea without Iraq, says Mr Blair. And it's the first time a US administration has made a commitment to a two-state solution, he says. "I am working as hard as I've ever worked to get this process back on track again," he says .
Mr Bush "cut the process of at the knees" by accepting Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's refusal to resettle settlers on the West Bank, claims Mr Leigh. What has he delivered to you on the Middle East, he asks again.
He is the first president to accept a two-state solution and he has got the roadmap on the table, replies Mr Blair - but we need a security status to ensure Israeli safety from Palestinian terrorists.
11am
Donald Anderson of the foreign affairs select committee says it "manifestly has not happened" that Mr Bush has "expended as much energy" on the Middle East as Mr Blair did on Northern Ireland, as the US leader promised to do in Belfast last year.
"I think to be seen as the closest ally of America is not much of a price to be paid anywhere, to be frank," says Mr Blair. "It's a problem from time to time in my own political family," he concedes.
"Say what you like about America - in Afghanistan and Iraq they are trying to help countries that were failed states - what is wrong with that?"
Who's going to provide the forces in Iraq ahead of the elections, asks Mr Anderson. I don't think it's necessarily more British troops, deadbats Mr Blair. But who else will provide extra troops? Mr Blair doesn't know. There are discussions going on with the UN and the Iraqi government. The issue is about how fast you can equip and train the Iraqi forces, he says.
Alan Beith points out you can be close to the US without being close to the current administration. Mr Blair raises his eyebrows quizzically.
11.15am
The prime minister ducks a point from Mr Beith that the intelligence warned that a collapsed Iraq would prove an opportunity for al-Qaida and other terrorists.
"If those countries become stable democracies they've not got a hope," he counters.
Sir George has a cogent point - two years ago the prime minister told his party conference that a Rwanda could never happen again. Isn't the current crisis in Sudan proving that it is happening again?
"It's a very serious issue," admits Mr Blair - but you'd be hard put to point to any country around the world who had done more for Africa than the UK.
Mr Leigh gets very red in the face challenging Mr Blair over the relationship with the US - the prime minister again repeats it is more than a trade-off or pros and cons. "Most countries would give their eye teeth to have our relationship with the US," he says, mystified at why it is made a "mockery" of in the UK. And he adds that he will never subsume that relationship for the sake of other countries - mentioning France and Germany by name.
11.30am
Mr Leigh is getting so apoplectic that the questioning switches to Robert Key, again. He wants to know if there will be a cut in defence spending in next week's spending review, especially since he represents Salisbury, which has a heavy forces presence.
Surprisingly, Mr Blair seems to step on the chancellor's toes, by saying that - although he can't reveal what will be in Monday's announcement - "I don't think we'll be cutting defence spending at all."
Mr Keys is so shocked he can only ejaculate "thank you", and the chair, Alan Williams, decides such a moment of mutual warmth is a good time to end the final session of the liaison committee for this year.
