How did Tony Blair invade Iraq?

scorza said:
I'll admit that I was a moron and believed Blair when he said that Saddam was developing WMD, I naively thought that there was no way they'd lie about this because if it turned out that there were no WMD in Iraq then Blair would have to had resigned immediately! The thing that really freaks my nut though is that Tony Blair is actually still popular outside of the UK - look at how much money he makes working for foreign governments and the "third sector". I'd like it very much to see him put on trial in this country for something - if going this country to war on a false pretence isn't a crime it damn well should be.
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[TW]Fox;27662843 said:
Do we believe there is a chance he genuinely believed what he was saying though and that his intentions were honest if not utterly flawed and would later turn out to be a disastrous mistake?

It's very easy to judge with the benefit of hindsight, trouble is none of us will ever know what really happened in the run up to war and who really thought what.
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Both very pertinent points in my opinion.

Tony Blair was lent on very heavily in my opinion, however if you look at some of the things he has since said and done it certainly raises some eyebrows.
 
Amnesia said:
So how is the war on terror going ?
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The war on terror seems to be going great for the people creating it. More and more rights of western citizens are being seized. The latest asset seized being the internet itself, to me as a western citizen the thought of the internet becoming a governmental asset is far more terrifying than what the media and government have taught us about getting blown up on the way to work.

Basically when I'm sitting on an underground train, I worry more about what is "actually" happening in the world than this state of constant unease and worry I've been told I should be in when on an underground train.
 
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ebilcake said:
Iraq war had nothing to do with Al-Queda.
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They weren't the reason we went in but as soon as we did they became a factor. As soon as the US led troops set foot in Iraq they turned it into a magnet for every Jihadi in the Middle-East and North Africa. Getting to Afghanistan was relatively difficult for these people, getting to Iraq wasn't. Al-Queda in Iraq, led by Jordanian Abu Musub al-Zarqawi and HQ'd in a place called Fallujah, began operations almost immediately after Operation Iraqi Freedom started.
 
doofer said:
Armed Invasion of a Sovereign Country on False Pretences should fall in to the category of War Crimes as far as I'm concerned.
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If the other side did it it would have been.
And does he care as he swans around the world making millions? Not a bit.
 
I have always said that Tony Blair will be hung high one of these days - he will be fortunate if he doesn't see that day unlike the innocent souls that died for this mans actions. One day the wheels will turn and that man will be held to account - I believe this most seriously.
 
Mr Gimp said:
Blair and Bush did not create ISIS. The power vacuum left by the topple of a regime and the blissful ignorance of many nations allowed the formation of ISIS. If it didn't happen due to those events it would have happened sooner or later though.
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Who got the Israelis to unload 2000 toyota suv's with hardened suspension and huge russian gun mounts from their port right by Jordan for Isis?
 
Bad idea in hindsight - yes
WMD over stated - yes
Dossier dodgey - yes
A pooly timed distraction from Afghanistan - yes
Stupidly no reconstruction plan - yes
Disbanding of Iraq army stupid - yes
Ruined the war on terror (against the real issues) - yes
Ruined all future interventions - certainly for now
Whole thing a mistake - yes
Blair War crimes ? - lol don't be daft

Hanlons razor imho
 
doofer said:
The apathetic UK Population let him. And then let him get away with it when it was revealed it was all on False Pretences. Armed Invasion of a Sovereign Country on False Pretences should fall in to the category of War Crimes as far as I'm concerned.
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Actually if you go back to the time most people were frothing at the mouth for retaliation following 9/11 and 7/7, it didn't matter that the attackers were Saudi.

If the archives of this forum went back far enough you'd probably see that most people here were in favour and anyone calling the evidence against Saddam a sham would have been ridiculed as conspiracy wacks by the forums "anything that isn't official is conspiracy nonsense" clique and probably told to go and live in Iraq if you were against it. It wasn't apathy because most people were supportive due to the climate and media coverage at the time, those same people are currently chearleading economic and proxy warfare against Russia so not much has changed.
 
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The simple answer is he was PM of a party with a substantial majority. He could do whatever he wanted, and he was re-elected after the invasion, despite the protests.
 
gettothechopper said:
Bad idea in hindsight - yes
WMD over stated - yes
Dossier dodgey - yes
A pooly timed distraction from Afghanistan - yes
Stupidly no reconstruction plan - yes
Disbanding of Iraq army stupid - yes
Ruined the war on terror (against the real issues) - yes
Ruined all future interventions - certainly for now
Whole thing a mistake - yes
Blair War crimes ? - lol don't be daft

Hanlons razor imho
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But some of your yes votes make him a war criminal.
 
asim18 said:
The war on terror seems to be going great for the people creating it. More and more rights of western citizens are being seized. The latest asset seized being the internet itself, to me as a western citizen the thought of the internet becoming a governmental asset is far more terrifying than what the media and government have taught us about getting blown up on the way to work.

Basically when I'm sitting on an underground train, I worry more about what is "actually" happening in the world than this state of constant unease and worry I've been told I should be in when on an underground train.
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Yep - the government has been grabbing peoples rights to freedom and going unchallenged for the most part because of the hysteria being caused by 'radicalisation'.
 
arknor said:
america were selling arms to both sides ? or was that iraq vs iran?

america turned a blind eye over the WMDs actually used until there was public outrage too ;)

First gulf war lol


probably the same ones they had in 2003
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First gulf war lol
Quote:
The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."
probably the same ones they had in 2003

'He might be a son of a bitch - but he's our son of a bitch' - I remember that quote by the yanks
 
mmj_uk said:
Actually if you go back to the time most people were frothing at the mouth for retaliation following 9/11 and 7/7, it didn't matter that the attackers were Saudi.

If the archives of this forum went back far enough you'd probably see that most people here were in favour and anyone calling the evidence against Saddam a sham would have been ridiculed as conspiracy wacks by the forums "anything that it isn't official is conspiracy" clique and probably told to go and live in Iraq if you were against action. It wasn't apathy because most people were supportive due to the climate and media coverage at the time.
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Utter nonsense - 7/7 happened in 2005, two years after the invasion of Iraq. Yes the nature of the world is that if you are attacked you have to attack back and that was happening in Afghanistan, where the regime had been sheltering the 9/11 culprits. As I've already admitted, I was one of the morons in favour of attacking Iraq on these forums back in those days, I remember it differently - certainly felt like I was in a minority.

Since you brought it up, another thing to consider with Iraq is the effect it had on the war in Afghanistan. My recollection was that the Taliban were all but beat in 2003 - on the run, with very little in terms of support around the world. Then Iraq happened and all of a sudden they seemed to get a second wind - tactics such as the use of IEDs were exported from Iraq to Afghan and all of a sudden we'd snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory there.

Stretch said:
The simple answer is he was PM of a party with a substantial majority. He could do whatever he wanted, and he was re-elected after the invasion, despite the protests.
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To be fair, a quarter of Labour MPs rebelled against the vote. The Conservative Party were also in favour of invading Iraq. Also, the PM doesn't need parliamentary approval to take military action - in this case it was just a courtesy to allow a debate and then vote.
 
AlecR said:
First statement: 100% agree.

Second statement: would it have easily passed if the evidence hadn't been ********?
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Probibly not - but the insinuation is that they knew there was no WMD and so lied about its existence, I however believe they thought that they would be proved right about WMD so dressed it up(too much) - the two are very different
 
Getting rid of Saddam was what should have happened at the end of the first Gulf War. He thought the US and UK were bluffing back in 2003 with his blocking of inspections and brinksmanship and he and his gangster family paid dearly for it.
 
But its arguable whether these wars have really done anything. There's a massive power struggle in a lot of the Middle East - are the citizens who we supposedly were trying to protect, any better off? Not really.

As I was told when I was younger: it's all about oil.
 
arknor said:
as in ISIS would not have happened without the second IRAQ war.

look into the groups that eventually formed ISIS
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What a load of drivel, as usual. if anything, its the wussies running around in a panic about another iraq that created ISIS, specifically Milliband bending over at just the right moment to let Assad off the hook for using chemical weapons. With no help coming from the **** in their pants West, the moderates turned to the only effective fighting force in Syria, and ISIS became what it is today.

And the situation that lead to Syria stemmed more from the arab spring than it did from the Iraq war, where in case you hadnt noticed, most of the anti US forces are now in government with Iran lording it over them. You know, the Iran that is bonbing ISIS currently?

Makes me laugh that you point to the Arab spring like its a bunch of terrorists running around causing trouble, it was about as close to a democratic uprising in the ME as were likely to get - they just dont want democracy, prefering religious based government. Which of course, does make them democracy hating terrorists eh.
 
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