Tony Blair War Inquiry

I ask my self would I have invaded Iraq if I had been the PM at the time?

Well, of course, I was not the PM but first I would have explored all possible means of finding an effective solution with out a war. With diplomacy, technology and intelligence there are many ways that a similar effect could have been achieved with out such a loss of life.

If I had unfortunately drawn the conclusion that there was absolutely no alternative I would have to be totally satisfied that what ever we were planning was not in anyway considered to be illegal.

Then, of course, any prudent Prime Minsiter would want to make sure that all the necessary planning and preparation had been carried out before committing soldiers to an invasion.

Clearly careful consideration would mean that you would require a war budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Simply because this was unknown teritory and we would not know how long we would be committed for and at what cost as there was more than enough time to budget properly.

Rather strangely the then Chancellor Gordon Brown doesn't seem to have either been kept informed or failed to find out what was happening. It could be, however, that Blair in his Presidential style wanted to keep Gordon Brown in the dark.

Why wasn't the Chancellor of the Exchequer involved in financial preparation for an invasion surely a budget would be required?

I have no doubt that this is a typical example of how the Labour government failed the British Army and the voting public.

Before the Chilcott enquiry on Friday 21st January 2011 Tony Blair glibly stated that Thatcher did not have the Chancellor of the Exchequer in her Falklands War cabinet. Clearly there can be no comparison as the Falklands was an immediate response to an invasion with no real time for drawing up a war budget and with no intention for a long drawn out compaign.

This just proves the point that Tony Blair and the Labour government failed in their duty to protect the brave troops that they were committing to the war.

I can not set out in this article each and every failing of Blair's failed war, as that would take a few books, but some of the failings were:-

Lack of proper equipment and armoured vehicles suitable for the operating conditions. Not enough helicopters with winches suitable for air lifting wounded soldiers. Last but not least what was the exit plan or did Tony Blair not have one or had he not even thought of one?

Lets be quite frank that if a Government goes to war with out an exit plan then they are committing brave British soldiers and the tax payer to pay for their badly planned war.

Apart from equipment issues Blair should have listened very carefully to the late Robin Cook who resigned from the cabinet on 17th March 2003. The words that he used to introduce his resignation speech in Parliament say a great deal " I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support".

"An extract from what he said is "The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules." that sounds like very good policy to me.

Obviously Tony Blair chose to ignore sound advice and not follow the rules.

Some 8 years after the invasion of Iraq Tony Blair told the Chilcot enquiry "I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life".

The tearful relatives of some of the 179 soldiers who gave their lives shouted out "it's too late" turned away from Blair and marched out.

The inquiry were able to release details of a memo from Blair in March 2002 some 12 months before the invasion and in that memo he demanded a more "gung ho" approach.

Who did he think he was Bruce Lee?

At the end of Blairs evidence before the Chilcot inquiry in January 2011 he was approached by Reg Keys the father of Lance Cpl Tom Keys who was killed by a mob in Iraq aged 20 in June 2003. He said "I just wanted to say that you are a disgrace to your office". I fully concur as Blair failed our troops miserably.

Reg Keys stood in the 2005 Election as an anti-war independent candidate for Sedgefield a constituency seat held by the then PM Tony Blair.He gave an excellent speech and challenged Blair to confirm how many of our courageous troops had lost their lives in Iraq. Blair was highly embarrased as he had no idea.

In summary the conclusion has to be that one could never ever vote for Labour as they have lost the faith of the electorate.


------

The author writes a great many articles on taxes and for detailed more information please go to Ed Miliband Labour