Monday, November 07, 2005

Blowing the Whistle

The Republicans in the U.S. may follow their Dear Leader lockstep, never questioning his failures, but it looks like the international community is starting to pull back the veil of lies.

Tony Blair repeatedly passed up opportunities to put a brake on the rush to war in Iraq, a failure that may have contributed to the country's present anarchy, according to Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's ambassador to Washington at the time, in his book DC Confidential, serialised in the Guardian from today.

[snip]

Sir Christopher, highly critical of Mr Blair's performance in the run-up to the war, argues the prime minister and his team were "seduced" by the proximity and glamour of US power and reluctant to negotiate conditions with George Bush for Britain's support for the war.

The former ambassador says a delay from March to autumn 2003 could have made a significant difference: "Even if the most optimistic predictions are finally realised for Iraq, the question will still be asked: why did the Americans and British make it so hard for themselves and even harder for Iraqis? The US and the UK would have stood a better chance of going to war in good order, and of doing the aftermath right, had they planned on an autumn, not a spring, campaign."

He reveals that Karl Rove, the political adviser to the president, told him there would have been no problem for Mr Bush in waiting until the end of 2003 or even early 2004 and this would not have risked entanglement in the US presidential campaign.

Can someone explain to me why Karl Rove is negotiating war plans with the British government prior to his appointment as a policy advisor in the White House? In 2003/04 he was purely a political overlord, working on George's reelection.

Add this to the growing list of damning proof that the American public was sold a preemptive war based on a pack of lies.

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