By Kua Kia Soong
It was reported in the Malaysian press recently that Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister has made an apology on US TV for his part in the invasion of Iraq. The press report did not delve into the circumstances that led to this belated apology.
In fact, he only made a “half-apology” for invading Iraq and admitted he could only be “partly to blame” for the rise of Islamic State. For 12 years he had doggedly refused to apologize for being responsible for the conflict. Blair made this volte face during a TV interview about the ‘hell’ caused by his and George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein. While he repeatedly said sorry for his conduct, he denied he had committed war crimes:
‘I apologise for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong. I also apologise for some of the mistakes in planning and, certainly, our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.’
Not a sudden bout of contrition
However, he did not have a sudden bout of contrition after 12 years; rather it followed a week after the leakage of a bombshell White House memo revealing for the first time how Blair and Bush agreed a ‘deal in blood’ a year before the invasion. A 2002 briefing note from US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the President showed Blair had secretly pledged to back the conflict – while telling MPs and British voters that he was seeking a diplomatic solution.
The Colin Powell memo – which the Mail on Sunday found among declassified US State Department documents while searching through Hillary Clinton’s recently released emails – was written in March 2002, a week before Mr Blair met Mr Bush for a summit at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Leaked documents show Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for President Bush by presenting ‘public affairs lines’ to convince a sceptical public that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction – when none existed.
In the memo, Powell says to Bush: ‘He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause,’ adding that Blair had the presentational skills to ‘make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace’.
Nowhere in the memo is a diplomatic route suggested as the preferred option. Instead, Powell says that Blair will also advise on how to ‘handle calls’ for the ‘blessing’ of the United Nations Security Council, and to ‘demonstrate that we have thought through “the day after” ’ – in other words, made adequate provision for a post-Saddam Iraq.
Powell says that although Blair will ‘stick with us on the big issues’, he wants to minimise the ‘political price’ he would have to pay: ‘His voters will look for signs that Britain and America are truly equity partners in the special relationship.’ The President certainly did his best to flatter Blair’s ego during the Crawford summit, where he was the first world leader to be invited into Bush’s sanctuary for two nights.
Five months after the summit, Downing Street produced the notorious ‘45 minutes from doom’ dossier on Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. After Saddam was toppled, the dossier’s claims were exposed as bogus.
A second explosive memo from the same cache also reveals how Bush used ‘spies’ in the Labour Party to help him to manipulate British public opinion in favour of the war. The problem they had was that such an aim was illegal under international law. So began the lengthy process of lies and deception which paved the way for this completely unjustified war.
The disclosure is certain to lead for calls for Sir John Chilcot to reopen his inquiry into the Iraq War if, as is believed, he has not seen the Powell memo.
Blair’s feigned candidness
In his CNN interview, Blair asked for forgiveness for his ‘blunder in not realising what would happen once you removed the regime’. In actual fact, this feigned candidness flies in the face of the statement in the Powell memo that Blair would ‘demonstrate [to Bush] that we have thought through “the day after” ’ – a reference to the consequences of invasion.
Blair’s belated confession about the Iraq War and the rise of IS is in stark contrast to his repeated refusal to shoulder the blame for the conflict, or its long term consequences. In 2004, he told MPs: ‘I will not apologise for the conflict. I believe it was right.’ He stuck to his hard line in 2007, saying: ‘I don’t think we should be apologising at all for what we are doing in Iraq.’
In his 2010 memoirs, he explained why he had so far refused to say ‘yes’ when asked if he was sorry, because he knew it would prompt damaging headlines. ‘Answer “Yes” and I knew the outcome: “BLAIR APOLOGISES FOR WAR”, “AT LAST HE SAYS SORRY”. I can’t say sorry in words.’
Overwhelming case to try Blair for war crimes
Blair’s recent apology must be seen in the light of the impending criticism of his handling of the Iraq War by the Chilcot’s findings expected to be made public next year. Cynics have pointed out that since Chilcot is likely to accuse him of major errors of judgment, Blair has decided that it is better for him to volunteer an apology now, rather than be forced to do so after the Chilcot report is out.
Critics of the war say that the lack of post-conflict planning has contributed to the loss of more than 100,000 lives since the invasion – and a power vacuum which has contributed to the rise of Islamic State terrorism.
Chilcot should immediately publish its findings, and there is an overwhelming case for Blair and his partners in crime to face trial at The Hague for war crimes.
Kua Kia Soong is adviser to Suaram, the human rights group