Tony Blair wanted a 'gung-ho' approach to Saddam a year before Iraq invasion

[sabra]

Source: Guardian UK

Chilcot inquiry documents show Tony Blair's concerns over lack of Labour party support for Iraq war

Tony Blair told one of his closest advisers a year before the invasion of Iraq that his government should be "gung-ho on Saddam" and had to "reorder our story and message" to convince public opinion of the need to get rid of him.

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Blair told Powell: "The persuasion job on this seems very tough. My own side are worried. Public opinion is fragile ... Yet from a centre-left perspective, the case should be obvious. Saddam's regime is a brutal, oppressive military dictatorship."

He continued: "In fact a political philosophy that does care about other nations – eg Kosovo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and is proud to change regimes on the merits, should be gung-ho on Saddam."Blair told Powell: "So why isn't it? Because people believe we are only doing it to support the US, and they are only doing it to settle an old score. And the immediate WMD problems don't seem obviously worse than three years ago. So we have to reorder our story and message. Increasingly, I think it should be about the nature of the regime."

In a memo to Blair two months later, Powell said: "a) We will be there when the US takes the decision to act, but ... b) we need to set an ultimatum as we did to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Powell added: "c) We need to establish a legal base ... We need to make the case ... We need to have the sort of Rolls-Royce information campaign we had at the end of Afghanistan before we start in Iraq." Blair wrote in the margin: "I agree with this entirely."




Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/21/tony-blair-iraq-inquiry-saddam

[Kolesar]

1. Sean Penn had more brains than lapdog Tony Blair...eom