I am astonished that Blair had not prepared a convincing answer to the question of why he told Fern Britton that, if he had known there were no WMD, he would have found another argument “to temove” Saddam. Blair blustered, failed to finish several sentences and then concluded that he had not used the words “regime change”. So “to remove” Saddam from the local knitting circle, then.
I have no hopes rhe ultimate report will be anything but a whitewash. However the body language is fascinating. Baroness Ushar is not a good forensic questioner but is looking at him with great disataste. Blair has lost his smoothness in lying. When pushed on the details of Crawford Blair varies between stumbling and gabbling too quickly for the stenographer. When he manages to get off subject, for example on to Clinton and Kosovo, his whole demeanour changes and he is his old fluent self – but only when he wriggles off subject.
“I would not have done Iraq if I had not thought it was right” he just said. Nobody doubts that. I think Hitler could have honestly said the same too. There is nothing more dangerous than a sociopath who thinks he is right.
As I’ve just posted below I think he’s going for humble/well-meaning, but the ire & nastiness show. I also echo the howls of disbelief on the Guardian blog when he linked Iraq to 9/11 and then started talking about how ‘they’ want to kill us.
And was not even challenged. Is no-one actually going to say 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq? Not one of the panel? Are they really going to let him get away with waffling on about ‘perceptions’?
Seems so.
I’m watching Blair on CNN in Malaysia right now. I’ll admit that its only on in the background, I can’t bring myself to pay close attention when Blair is clearly so disingenuous and slimy. I would be shocked if anyone can watch Blair and get the impression he is an honest man.
So far my impression is that a lot of his testimony (and questions presented to him) are trying to frame the issue as though it was the thoughtful UK that was constantly trying to temper the behaviour of the boorish USA.
How can Blair claim that the sanctions were failing when it has been well established that Saddam didn’t have any WMD???
hahaha even CNN said that the inquiry is “Not combative and unfailingly polite”.
I’ve been standing around outside all morning. I missed him because he didn’t come in through the main entrance. It’s clear from the police presence that they expected a far bigger turn out. I doubt there’s much more than 150 protesters here. Not that I’m one of them. Here more as a sort of semi pro observer. Think I’ll go down the Westminster Arms.
The military were “up for it” apparently.
He’s skirting round the question I asked both Craig & Charles Crawford: could we actually have said no to the US? Blair has just said that we could “distance” ourself from the US but “it would be a long way back”, whatever that means.
Blair’s first deception
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1264759083.html
Baroness Prashar usually looks severe but I think you are right about her today.
Bliar is sweating up. All the usual phrases,mannerisms and hand gestures are being used for full effect. He should have had a career on the stage.
He’s doing quite a good Hugh Grant at the moment.
Interesting that he is very often called a psychopath and now has just used that word to describe Saddam Hussein and his sons.
“There is nothing more dangerous than a sociopath who thinks he is right.”
I saw Blair briefly at about 9:30am and his face has taken on a distorted grimace, the contour of contempt, the mode of deflection, the delay of deceit, the malevolent duplicity of delivery, the falseness of eye.
I retched and dived for the remote, the mask had been shattered.
OK so he’s just agreed that 9/11 wasn’t linked to Iraq, and then linked them by saying that other terrorist groups could have got hold of WMD’s or nuclear weapons. But he couldn’t name a terrorist group operating in Iraq at the time though they are now. He’s just pointed to Yemen, Somalia etc as places where terrorists can get hold of WMD today.
Panel hotting up the questions, it seems?
Yes, and if you look really closely you can see “666” printed on his forehead, can’t you? Oh dear..
You must be watching a different feed to me. He is giving a polished performance, as expected, and scoring regular boundaries, to use Craig’s cricketing metaphor.
I have also noticed that he keeps referring to Iran and implying that something needs to be done about it. The only distinction he makes between Iraq and Iran is that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions. Disgusting.
Technicolour –
Yeah the phrase about the military being ‘up for it’ was sickening. But thanks for making me laugh with the Hugh Grant comment.
No Alan. The devil doesn’t exist. However, if you look at the photo the Guardian are running of Blair, you can see a large W engraved on the centre of his forehead. We noticed this a couple of years ago, actually. Go figure.
I thought the Blair has a W tramp stamp?
“was it wise to say the intelligence was beyond doubt?”
“Wise”?
Eddie,
Your right, trouble is, Blair’s boundaries keep moving.
technicolour,
Thanks for the update.
Just subtly blamed SIS for bad intelligence, and now blaming William Hague for putting pressure on him in a Parliamentary question. Body language more confident, sitting forward, using glasses to pause, and apparently deciding what they will discuss when – “we’ll come to this later”.
Now saying he personally was convinced by the “mobile labs” that the Iraq WMD threat was growing, although the intelligence turned out to be wrong.
Again, 9/11 made him take a different view to other countries, who did not agree with the invasion.
So, if I do 50 mph in a 40 mph limit do you think Blair would defend me if I said I genuinely believed that the limit was 60? I’m just wondering if he thinks what was said to have been believed would be as relevant in that circumstance as he evidently thinks it is in, say, a case of killing hundreds of thousands of people and disrupting the lives of millions more.
They’ve just mentioned “Groupthink” – that’s all this farce is.
They are all on the side of the defence. Its as if the criminal has fabricated an enormous web of complete bullshit with his defence team and has been well coached.
Where is the Prosecution?
What is the bleedin point of this?
Do they think we are THAT stupid?
Pass the sick bucket.
Tony
@Tony – I guess they think enough of us are that stupid, or polite/resigned enough not to make too much fuss about it. We had *another* inquiry, what more do we want? Truth? Justice?
My first impressions are remembering how I fell for Blair in the first place – so intelligent and articuate, and able to speak in complicated subclauses, remember them, and bring them all together at the conclusion of the sentence.
But then, so much has happened since Blair seemed the fresh new voice of the Labour party and British politics, so I am also reminded of how artlessly this man can dissemble and evade and deny and half-admit and generally play with the words.
My impression so far is of Blair’s enviable skill with words, but that instead of filling me with admiration as he used to, he is coming across as glib and feverish.
I also had the impression he was grandstanding and using the opportunity to suggest Iran needed a dose of the same medicine, which is wayyyy out of line.
9/11 “Mobile labs” and Aluminium tubes.
“There was dissent within the intelligence community in the first 48 hours after 9/11 over the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Richard Clarke, President Bush’s chief counterterrorism adviser, has written that President Bush asked him on September 12 to “see if Saddam did this. See if he is linked in any way. . .” Clarke said that he responded by saying, “Absolutely, we will look . . . again,” and then adding, “But you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq.”
In an interview with Polish television on May 29, 2003, President Bush stated: “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Bush was referencing two trailers or “mobile labs” discovered in Iraq.
Just days earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the trailers “could not be used as a transportable biological production system as the system is presently configured.” It was ultimately acknowledged that the trailers had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were probably used to manufacture hydrogen employed in weather balloons.”
” During the preparation of the September 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the Energy Department and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research stated their belief that Iraq intended to use the aluminium tubes in a conventional rocket program.”
I’ve just remembered he’s now the public face of Louis Vuitton.
He’s also being rather messianiac about Saddam’s ‘intent to have WMD’. His eyes glinted dangerously. I like the quite sweet exhausted looking chap questioning him (Sir Lawrence?).
oops
Here is the link:
http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=project_home&context=key_false_statements&id=946
This is completely out of line:
“11.57am: There’s a very strong “Iran is a threat” theme running through Blair’s evidence today. He has mentioned Iran several times, and the comment he made at 11.51am – about having to take Iraq-style decisions again in the future – seemed to be aimed at Iran.
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jan/29/iraq-war-inquiry-tonyblair#start-of-comments