Tony Blair stars in You Only Lie Twice

At Tony Blair’s second interview before the panel of the Iraq Inquiry he insisted on the fact that diplomacy has always been their priority in dealing with the decision to go to war. He still did not give a coherent account of the reasons for which he decided to engage in the conflict with the US Army.

Mr Blair, along with his former collaborators Brown and Hoon, has made it clear that he did not give President Bush full and unconditional support and used the diplomatic option, until the House of Commons voted for intervention. Geoff Hoon, the former Defence Secretary, said he informed his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld on the very day of the elections that “if the vote went the wrong way, we would not take action, and we could not take action.”

Mr Blair has outlined the importance of the 9/11 attacks in providing justification to go to war along with the achieved overthrow of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein. He has expressed his feelings about the terrorist attacks on the twin towers by claiming he felt they were an attack not on America, but “on us, the West.” He indicated the importance at the time to try and neutralise the terrorist threat, which seemed undoubtedly linked to Iraq’s regime.

Blair persists in saying that Iraq was linked to the terrorist attacks of 2001. This, and the alleged presence of illegal weapons of mass destruction, has been proven to be entirely fallacious by both the CIA and the MI5 before 2003. Lady Manningham-Buller, a former MI5 boss, said to the panel that both US and UK governments were informed that the terrorist threat from Iraq was low, adding that she was irritated to see American officials putting efforts into making that theory credible.

The invasion of Iraq was made on false declarations and a narrow interpretation of the terrorist threat. It is very likely that the true reasons for the US to go to war in Iraq were mainly economical and strategic; and if it ever was in response to 9/11, it was driven by passion rather than reason. But Blair’s reasons to lead the UK into this quagmire seem less comprehensible. It comes as quite a shock to realise that he still thinks Iraq was in some way related to the terrorist threat of the early 2000s. But it is even more appalling to realise that if he had to do it again, he would.