a higher proportion of them voted for invading Iraq than Labour MPs did.
For a snapshot of the Telegraph's, and other papers', opinion leading up to the Iraq invasion:
Not in Britain, though, where the latest polls show a mere 10 per cent in favour of war without a second UN approval. The four Murdoch papers - 36 per cent of the national market - stand four-square beside their boss. The two Telegraphs of Conrad Black pit 'Old Europe versus New World' and, with magnificent predictability, hail the New World Dawn as Lord Black delivers a very long lecture in his own Spectator praising that fine Blair 'courage'.
Add in the Daily Mail and the ancestral voices backing war are loud and vociferous. Courageous Tony has the heaviest hitters on board.
Two countries 25 miles apart with very similar public opinion polls, but two hugely disparate press responses. 'What's the difference between toast and Frenchmen?' asks the Sun. Answer: 'You can make soldiers out of toast.'
...
Wherever a national press is nationally owned, there's an ebb and flow of real argument at the moment. But in Britain, things are exactly as we're used to them. The only papers owned by a joined up euro-country - Sir Tony O'Reilly's (Irish) Independents - are rigorously anti-Blair. 'Regime change in Westminster may precede that in Baghdad'. The Guardian has never felt warmer about Jacques Chirac. The Mirror seldom pauses for a second thought. 'Heed the sane voices of Old Europe ... this is no lovers' tiff.' The Express examines its navel: 'Mr Blair cannot just railroad a divided country into war.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,896415,00.htmlBlack doesn't own the Telegraph any more, but it's attitude hasn't changed much.
Con Coughlin was a never-ending cheerleader for the neocons (until that word became unfashionable - see below), and against Iraq and Iran (I apologise for the number of links, but I'm using this post to collect all his warmongering in one easy-to-find place):
Number 10 won't stop Bush going after Saddam (2 Dec 2001; in which he argues Blair would only support an attack on Iraq with "incontrovertible evidence" linking Baghdad directly to the September 11 attacks)
Iran should come before Iraq (17 Mar 2002)
Saddam killed Abu Nidal over al-Qa'eda row (25 Aug 2002; claims Abu Nidal was killed for refusing to train al Qa'eda)
Saddam has outwitted his enemies again (17 Nov 2002; by allowing in arms inspectors, if you want to know - Coughlin blames Colin Powell for the USA not attacking Iraq without inspections, and worries that it might turn out there are no WMD, which would be a disaster, as far as he's concerned)
Mombasa bombing reveals possible al-Qa'eda-Hizbollah link (8 Dec 2002)
Syrians 'smuggling arms to Baghdad' (14 Dec 2002)
UN inspectors uncover proof of Saddam's nuclear bomb plans (18 Jan 2003)
The fall of the Baghdad wall (19 Jan 2003; "Saddam is continuing with his quest to develop the first Arab atom bomb")
So what if Saddam's deadly arsenal is never found? (1 Jun 2003)[br /How the 45-minute claim got from Baghdad to No 10 (7 Dec 2003; praising the source of misinformation that ended in Dr. Kelly's death)[br />
Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam (13 Dec 2003)
Five N-bombs within Iran's grasp as West prevaricates (11 Sept 2004)
Syria brokers secret deal to send atomic weapons scientists to Iran (28 Sept 2004; "Iraqi nuclear scientists", of course)
Still they won't admit they got Iraq wrong (2 Feb 2005; :rofl: )
Iran plans secret 'nuclear university' to train scientists (20 Mar 2005)
North Korea to help Iran dig secret missile bunkers (12 Jun 2005; hey, today's story sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
UN inspectors 'powerless to stop atom bomb plans in Iran' (11 Sept 2005)
Now we know the truth about Iran, we must act (9 Oct 2005)
Russians help Iran with missile threat to Europe (16 Oct 2005)
Smuggling route opened to supply Iraqi insurgents (29 Oct 2005)
Teheran 'secretly trains' Chechens to fight in Russia (26 Nov 2005)
Iran 'could go nuclear within three years' (17 Jan 2006)
'Only a matter of time before terrorists use weapons of mass destruction' (17 Jan 2006)
Iran plant 'has restarted its nuclear bomb-making equipment' (11 Feb 2006)
Teheran park 'cleansed' of traces from nuclear site (6 Mar 2006)
Iran has missiles to carry nuclear warheads (7 Apr 2006)
The West can't let Iran have the bomb (11 Apr 2006)
Iran accused of hiding secret nuclear weapons site (13 Jun 2006)
Israeli crisis is a smoke screen for Iran's nuclear ambitions (14 Jul 2006)
Meanwhile, Iran gets on with its bomb (21 Jul 2006)
Iran 'is training the next al-Qa'eda leaders' (15 Nov 2006)
He calims Iran is supporting the Taliban (22 Dec 2006)
It's instructive to compare his 2005 piece attacking the BBC, Robert Fisk, and politicians who opposed invading Iraq, "
Still they won't admit they got Iraq wrong", with his 2006 'deserting the sinking ship' piece, "
How the neo-cons lost the war":
2005:
Not that this view was at all reflected in the BBC's coverage last Sunday night. Rather than applauding the extraordinary bravery of the eight million or so Iraqi voters who braved the threats of Abu Musab al-Masawi, al-Qaeda's point man in Iraq, the BBC led with the negative line, "Violence mars Iraqi elections." There had, it is true, been suicide bomb attacks on polling stations in Baghdad and elsewhere, killing more than 30 people, but the death toll was modest by comparison with what al-Masawi and his cohorts had threatened.
Some people are just bad losers. The BBC, together with a significant section of the media, could not bring itself to acknowledge that Iraq's liberation from Saddam was being ratified by the democratic process. When a reporter said that voter turn-out exceeded 60 per cent, far higher than expected, I heard one of the producers remark, sotto voce, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
I presumed that they were finding it hard to reconcile the day's relatively successful outcome with the apocalyptic predictions made earlier that day by Robert Fisk, that Cassandra of Middle East reporting. Fisk's take on last weekend's election preparations was characteristically alarmist. "They are waiting for the rivers of blood", proclaimed a banner headline over his piece on the front page of The Independent on Sunday. Sorry, Fisky, wrong again! Both the Tigris and Euphrates retain their traditional effluent-grey hue. But then, this was no more than we should expect from a reporter who confidently predicted the evisceration of coalition forces by Saddam's Republican Guard during the 1991 Gulf War.
Nor were the media the only offenders in willing failure on Iraq. "The election in Iraq is held against a dark and dangerous background," trumpeted Robin Cook, Douglas Hurd and Menzies Campbell in a shared offering to The Times last weekend. Their argument was essentially that, because the Sunnis were boycotting the election, it would lead to greater tension in Iraq, perhaps even civil war.
Like so many of the arguments guaranteeing the election's failure, it was based on a false premise. Iraqi Sunnis are not just confined to the notorious triangle around Ramadi and Fallujah, the heartland of the anti-coalition insurgency. The Kurds, who represent about 20 per cent of the Iraqi population, are Sunni Muslims - or perhaps Messrs Cook, Hurd and Campbell do not regard the Kurds as being Iraqi? Anyway, when you add the 30 per cent from the Sunni triangle who voted to the 100 per cent from the Kurdish region, a clear majority of Sunnis participated in the election.
2006:
So long, that is, as they remain united in their determination to stay the course and see the job through. Which is why, despite the seemingly endless violence and bloodshed, Blair and Bush are incapable of facing up to the fact that Iraq today is as far-removed from a peaceful settlement as it was in the spring of 2003 when the US-led military coalition first took control of the country following Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
...
But none of those plans saw the light of day once President Bush had unilaterally decided to hand responsibility for post-war administration to the Pentagon, which was then firmly under the influence, if not the control, of the neocons. And they had an altogether more ambitious, and ultimately unattainable, vision of transforming Iraq from a backward Arab autocracy into a Western-style democracy.
...
By the summer of 2003, the coalition, which had been hailed as Iraq's liberators in April, was held in utter contempt by an Iraqi population that had no desire to be occupied in the first place.
...
Tony Blair must take much of the blame for this disastrous state of affairs. Blair loyalists, and indeed the Bush administration, will argue forcibly that much progress has been made and that, thanks to the dedication and sacrifice of troops from Britain and America, Iraq has a new constitution and a democratically elected government.
The political advances have been impressive, with remarkable turn-outs in last year's referendum and this year's general election. But irrespective of the tangible progress on the political front, the coalition's nation-building credibility has been thoroughly compromised by the continuing chaotic security situation which shows no sign of abating.
You have to admire his ability to turn on a dime, and without any shame whatsoever.
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