Tony Blair: {UpDated}

Tony, like our own leaders?, have found their excuses and justifications, they sound an awful lot like those of the bin Ladens and Saddam's of this world!

"Iraq War was right even if there were no WMDs"

Tony Blair would have invaded Iraq even if he had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country, he has admitted.

Mr Blair replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat."

He added: "I can't really think we'd be better off with him and his two sons still in charge but it's incredibly difficult... and that's why I sympathise with the people who were against it for perfectly good reasons and are against it now but, for me, in the end I had to take the decision."

Snip

At a memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral in October to honour British military and civilian personnel who served in Iraq, Mr Blair offered his hand to Peter Brierley, whose son, Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, was killed in 2003. Mr Brierley told him: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it."

Asked if the anger of parents like Mr Brierley was "the cross you will always have to bear", Mr Blair said: "Let's be clear, it's worse for them. They have lost their child and it's very sad. If you have lost your loved one but you think you have lost them in a cause that's not worth it, that makes it worse."

Snip

Elsewhere in the interview, to be broadcast this Sunday, Mr Blair said his faith was central to his life and discussed his conversion to Catholicism in 2007, after leaving office. ..>>>>>

Blair feels all the Deaths, Tens of Thousands of Iraqi, Millions of Iraqi Refugee's, Destroyed Country and Sectarianism, 179 British Soldiers, 4370 and Counting U.S. Soldiers, and Total of 4688 Military Coalition Deaths, as well as the Tens of Thousands of Maimed, Physically and Mentally, Soldiers and Civilians was just Hon-key Dory to take down Saddam and Sons.

As well as being a part of the Human Rights Violations the U.S. was carrying out against not only our Laws but International Laws, of which we and the brits along with other countries wrote and enforced as we also condemn others who break them, on Torture and Rendition's, the Rendition's coming in some cases in the occupied theaters but also many from elsewhere.

UK accused of rendition over men arrested in Iraq

A legal rights charity has accused the government of misleading Parliament over two men arrested by the British military in Iraq.

Reprieve says British forces handed the men to the US military who then took them to Afghanistan in 2004.

It says one of them is a Shia rice trader and not part of a banned group linked to al-Qaeda, as ministers claim...>>>>>

Saddam, a dictator who was once good friends with as well as installed in power, with some western powers being involved! We did more to the Iraqi's then Saddam, and his hencemen, could have dreamed of and in only a few years time, And It Continues with the BlowBack on All, Especially the coming generations, there and World Wide, from not only Iraq but the Whole Region as it's caused major shifts and more hatreds!!

BBC Video cuts of the "Fern Britton Meets... Tony Blair" show to be shown on Sunday 13 December at 10am on BBC One.

Tony Blair on choice to remove Saddam Hussein
Tony Blair on choice to remove Saddam Hussein

And Blair talks about his Faith in his decision making
Tony Blair tells Fern Britton how faith influenced decisions

Where do they miss the obvious, when they speak like this, they sound just like those who we label as our enemies and terrorists!

It's 'righteous' to invade another, using as just one of many excuses of WMD's, weapons of mass destruction, as we use WMD's, weapons of mass destruction, to destroy and kill innocent human beings to silence one!

They and All who hide behind the twisted ideologies they've adapted and call Righteous Religious Beliefs, his Christianity, as they pick pieces of Bible Quotes in their justifications!

Sounds just like, well we know who or whom!!

Mission Accomplished!!

UpDate:

Calls for Prosecution for War Crimes!!

Blair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage

Tony Blair's admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.

The former prime minister, who backed the US-led invasion in 2003, told the BBC it would "still have been right to remove" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.

Lawyers representing the deposed Iraqi leadership said they would seek to prosecute Blair following his remarks, while one newspaper commentator said it was a "game-changing admission" for the ongoing official inquiry into the war.

Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix added: "The war was sold on the WMD, and now you feel, or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments, as he said, it sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up."...>>>>>

British Inquiry Into Iraq War

This is what this Country, the United States, should be doing now or had already done during the previous administration, investigating towards Impeachment and possible Indictments, depending on what evidence of crimes and lies surfaced. Especially if we really are what we like to think and demand others to believe we are and if our Constitution still exist as the leading Representative Democracy on this planet. But leave it up to 'Old Europe', hopefully, to seek answers that should be in the light of day and a part of the physical history added to the already known.

But it's never to late for us to try and minimize the blowback from our extremely destructive policies, or is it!

Rose Gentle seeks truth from Iraq inquiry

The Glasgow mother, whose son Gordon was killed in the Iraq War, has been speaking ahead of the opening of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry.


{this isn't the video from this report, the news video at link}

The mother of a Glasgow soldier who was killed in Iraq has spoken ahead of the inquiry into why the war began.

Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon died in Basra in 2004, spoke to STV News before travelling down to London for the beginning of the inquiry on Tuesday.

Rose has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq conflict and helped set up the group Military Families against the War...>>>>>

Tuesday 24 November 2009 - Opening of Inquiry

Iraq Inquiry Opens Amid Whitewash Claims

The chairman of an official inquiry into the Iraq war has used his opening remarks to rebuff claims it will be a whitewash and insisted it will be a "fair and frank" investigation.



Sir John Chilcot said he will not will not shy away from being critical in his wide-ranging, televised probe into how the UK came to invade the country in 2003...>>>>>

Chilcot inquiry told UK did not consider Iraq regime change before 9/11

Whitehall refused to engage in talks about toppling Saddam but shared US concerns that containment policy was failing



British officials decided not to get involved in talk about regime change in Iraq in 2001 even though some parts of the new Bush administration began to discuss the possibility two years before the invasion, the opening hearing of the UK inquiry into the war heard today.

But Whitehall was, like Washington, concerned that the policy of containing Saddam Hussein was failing before the September 11 attacks on the US, senior civil servants said....>>>>>

Saddam options 'discussed a year before Iraq war'

British officials privately discussed the prospect of "regime change" in Iraq in late 2001 - more than a year before the invasion - the Iraq War inquiry was told today.

Giving evidence on the first day of public hearings, Sir William Patey, a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office official, said the idea of ousting Saddam Hussein had been discussed in an internal FCO paper...>>>>>

Iraq Inquiry Digest Everything about the Chilcot Inquiry in one place

Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war Follow the action as inquiry into one of the most contentious decisions of modern times begins hearing evidence

Iraq Inquiry: Day 1

Well, after just six hours of evidence at an Inquiry that will last over a year and, already, some interesting disclosures.

The top lines are these:

1. There were "drum-beats" of war with Iraq coming from elements of the Bush Administration in early 2001

2. The UK discussed regime change in an internal Foreign Office "options paper" in 2001 but quickly dismissed it as illegal.

The focus of today was context: an effort to establish what the UK's position on Iraq was in 2001 - prior to the 9/11 attacks...>>>>>

"We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," Ricketts said, citing an article written by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warning that nothing would change in Iraq until Saddam was gone."...>>>>>

No 10 - Blair - Cover up - Iraq

Leaked documents reveal No 10 cover-up over Iraq invasion

• Inquiry to hear how Blair hid true intentions for war

• Military 'ill-prepared' for aftermath of invasion

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders' anger at what they call the government's "appalling" failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, promised to produce a "full and insightful" account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict...>>>>

Leila Fadel: Journalist

Leila has been a really good source and young Real Journalist on the Iraq occupation.

A McClatchy reporter reflects on what war brought to Iraq

I picked up a daily habit in Iraq. Every morning, before I left the office, I'd savor that moment — the moment before. Maybe it came from all the times that my Iraqi friends told me how they prayed before they walked out their doors because they might never return.

For almost three years, I spent my mornings the same way: I woke up and worried about what the day would bring. It wasn't a question of whether people would die that day, only of when, how and how many..........Rest Here

In Leila's Words