I meant to write about this before John Prescott at the Iraq Inquiry. But what has made me splutter with absolute bloody angry and outrage is Prescott saying this regarding the joint intelligence committee’s recommendations being, “frankly wrong” and “built too much on a little information”.
Furthermore
“That was my impression at the time but I just thought ‘well this is the intelligence document, this is what you have’,” he said. ”It seems robust but not enough to justify to that. Certainly what they do in intelligence is a bit of tittle-tattle here and a bit more information there.” He insisted there had been “democratic accountability” for the invasion, however, and concluded his evidence with a firm defence of Mr Blair. ”I know it’s quite fashionable to be critical of Tony Blair inside and outside this inquiry,” he said. ”We’ve seen a few people gloss over their part of the history. No one in government took this decision to go to war likely. I personally and privately witnessed the prime minister agonise over each and every death over Iraq, civilian and military, British and Iraqi.” [BTW this quote is a cut and paste so Harpymarx accepts no responsibility for the grammar and spelling]. ”And I learned that true leadership is not about the benefit of hindsight. It’s about having the gift of vision, courage and compassion, and I believe Tony Blair had all three.”
What a load of mealy-mouthed guff! So Iraq was invaded and occupied based on ‘tittle-tattle’ with no firm foundation based on evidence. But many in theat cabinet had private misgivings (let’s hear the excuse known as, ‘cabinet collective responsibility’ being argued) about war but didn’t have the collective bottle to speak out (other than Robin Cook) and now look at Iraq is now, invasion and occupation has devastated that country beyond comprehension and imagination. And yet…. these former-ministers defend the indefensible while exposing their own spinelessness (‘I didn’t like it, but had to go along with it, I swear to it, guv’!). Vision means being able to work out what is likely to happen if you follow a course of action for instance invading another country for no good reason and having no idea what you are going to do post conquest. Courage in the context of war means being prepared to get blown to bits yourself instead of allowing others be blow to bits. Compassion means an understanding that others will not want to suffer harm, for instance if a war occurs where they live. No Tony Blair was a man consumed by his own ego and corrupted by his own worship of political power.
Posted by harpymarx 
