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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo Iraq was all about Poodle BLAIR's & Shrub's bromance. It's rough being Shrub's little brother
Ask Jeb Crow Shrub.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/george-w-bush-tony-blair-iraq-war
[font size=5]Why the George W. BushTony Blair Political Bromance Is Still a Mystery[/font]
The Chilcot commission was convened to investigate Britains role in the Iraq war. Seven years and more than 2 million words later, it is still trying to fathom the relationship between the prime minister and president.
by Michael Kinsley
.... The important questions for the British, therefore, involve Blairs role in enabling Bush to go to waror, even more pathetic, Blairs letting Bush talk him into it. Blairs reputation is in the toilet, and many in Britain feel his shame. Little brother is only the kindest description of Blairs relationship with Bushand, by extension, Britains relationship with America. This is the special relationship they always prattle on about? Who needs it?
The British governmentand, presumably, the American government as wellhas detailed notes of no fewer than 130 conversations between Blair and Bush when both held the highest office in their respective countries. The government also has more than 20 notes from Tony Blair to George W. Bush. No doubt these documents could settle, or at least shed light on, the Bush-Blair relationship, and [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]exactly when the two of them hatched their plan. (Correct answer: A lot earlier than they ever told us.)[/FONT] As of late 2013, the British government, now in the hands of the Conservatives, had not released the material to Chilcot. But by May 2014, it finally had. ....
Leave aside whether Britain or the United States should be going around the world looking for regimes to change in the first place. (Whenever we try it on for sizeIran, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iraq, Libyathe results are disastrous.) If regime change in Iraq had been such a good idea, why werent Bush and Blair using it at the time as the justification for invading? They didntthey used the threat of W.M.D.
Even taken at face value, Blairs argument is a gnarly mess. His position boils down to this: (1) He is against war. (2) Nevertheless, because he believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, he favored the Iraq war. (3) If hed known that Saddam actually did not have W.M.D., he would have looked for another rationale, because Saddam was a nasty piece of work. (4) Except that it hadnt occurred to him that Iraq would be hopelessly chaotic and ripe for ISIS if the U.S. and Great Britain just invaded, knocked off the dictator, and left. (5) Which, when it did occur to him, made him slightly apologetic. (6) But hes not sorry about removing Saddam Hussein, even though thats the reason for everything he is sorry for. With each passing year, Blairs argument becomes more baroque. No wonder Chilcot had to keep on going. ....
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Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)all about protecting the Major Oil Companies from going broke. And the Twin Twits needed a Ego Trip to justify their leadership position. Exon and Shell wanted to stop Saddam from moving some 6 million barrels of Oil onto the market daily and thus crashing the Oil book.
There was article after article in the foreign press about how former Government officials call the Iraq War a clean up operation and fix Cheney's and H.W.Bush's screw-ups. Great example of you can't fix STUPID.
UTUSN
(70,711 posts)For Shrub, a lot of personal stuff: Revenge for Poppy; revenge for himself (against Poppy); "proving" himself to be bigger than Poppy...
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)did stuff in and around Iraq as well as Iran,and he always said this was a clean-up operation for the Spooks and the Neo-cons. He always mentioned Iraq was to be the go to Model of a total Libertarian Country. And we would laugh like you know what,and how is that Somali thing working out for them.