But again, did Tony Blair know it was a lie and misled the Parliament?
I remember the Chilcot report, but never read it. It's on my reading list now!
But from your quote, I don't see anything related specifically to Tony Blair?
Again, my point is, the executive power (Government/Prime Minister) came to the legislative power (The Parliament) with a motion to invade another country.
Both powers were using the same intelligence that they believed were genuine at the time, debated it for days, and then decided with 412 to 149 votes to start the invasion.
Why Tony Blair is singled out, for something in hindsight, and the other 411 people are given a pass?
Didn't the US and UK both fabricate "evidence"? Even then, it was obvious to many observers that the evidence simply wasn't credible, and the only outcome was disaster.
The Hutton Report claimed that the dossier was not sexed up (as the BBC claimed) and that it's all the BBCs fault. A few years later, Chilcott report basically said that the government did lie.
Yes. This is why the British troops were under-equipped because Tony Blair was intentionally holding back the knowledge that the choice to invade had already been made but he couldn't do this while also requesting parliament to fund war funding.
He was holding two narratives open at the same time. The public one where everything was above board, following all approved channels, ratified by the UN and due to WMD that he used to gain approval from the UK and a private one where it was clear the UK would go to war with the US regardless of what transpired.
My very simplistic understanding is that he is singled out because he was responsible for pressing on it and the thing was voted based on the “evidence” he was presenting.
My understanding is also that Bush, Powell, Rice and Rumsfeld are treated equally to Blair by some people.
That's unfortunate. The fact of the matter is that it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who personally architected the lie. Bush, Blair, et al, deserve plenty of blame for abrogating the duties of their leadership, but the history lesson here is that you don't ever let people like Cheney and Rumsfeld through the front door. Not because they're malicious (I admittedly always found Rumsfeld's politics beguiling), but because they're instigators and prime movers that won't hesitate to abuse power for their desired ends. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Notably, the Bush campaign and administration had plenty of warning (including from conservatives) about who they were inviting into their inner circle. That, of course, makes Bush doubly culpable for a failure in leadership. But Bush's failures are of a different kind, and if we equivocate with those of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their undersecretaries, we'll have learned nothing.
Your point that the legislature voted on the invasion is a reasonable one, but Blair's government gave them incorrect information on which to base their vote.
Blair was the head of the government that produced that bad intelligence. It makes sense to single him out.
"The buck stops here," and all that.
Now, you may ask yourself why would Iraqi scientist store WMD in glass beads, when those shatter easily and offer nearly nothing in return (maybe WMD doesn't react with glass, but then just use a glass canisters)? Was that some anal fetish or something?
It's because "" The source "" used Michael Bay movies as inspiration.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/08/it-was-such-obv...
They put the nasty stuff into test tube, then melt the tube shut. The result is a glass bubble filled with poison.
This makes it easier to store, move etc.
The movie portrayed glass bubbles of nerve gas as a way to deploy nerve gas, which makes no sense.
It also portrays glass a fragile, which isn’t true.
But scientists in a laboratory storing toxic chemicals in “glass beads” is very much something that “checks out.”
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politique-canad...
"Their proof wouldn't even convince one of the local court judge here!"
"If we begin to remove every dictator, who's going to be next? Why not Robert Mugabe? They told me he's not the same than Saddam. Well of course he doesn't have oil!"
Many people may not remember or may be too young. Those Feb and March protests were the biggest protest ever in history across the whole western world. "According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of 15 and 16 February." (WP) Police estimates for London, UK were 750k, but they were likely higher.
I left work one evening when they first began bombing and marched through the streets of Toronto and the energy was crazy. The following saturday protest was 100,000 people at least and a lot calmer, but outside the US embassy the atmosphere was intense, angry and electric. It was much larger in Montreal if I recall.
I don't have a reason to believe this is false, but do you have a reliable source confirming this?
I’m very glad Canadians made their voices heard, and their leaders listened.
But those protestors weren’t exactly questioning the (non-existent) evidence, as they were saying “fuck the Americans.”
It reminded me of footage from the Seattle 1999 WTO protests.
It’s better that be said before a war, rather than during. But still not fun to watch.