Mr Blair misled us - and now he is looking silly

[T_i_B]

An article by Clarles Kennedy, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats.

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=485376

I met too many brave and dignified widows last October. The occasion was the memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, London, for the troops who died in Iraq. It was moving and emotional. As I talked to the families of those who had been killed, I found that some were angry and others disillusioned, while many seemed simply hurt and bewildered. As a politician, I was fiercely aware that we had let them down. Tony Blair kept his distance.

I believe the Prime Minister made a disastrous error of judgment over Iraq and last week's ICM poll showed that 48 per cent of the population believe he lied. This is enormously damaging both to his integrity and the trust we should have in the office.

Whether knowingly or not, Tony Blair misled us; his judgement was seriously flawed. Mr Blair clings to his assertions that in the end some evidence will be found by the Iraq Survey Group. This is now starting to make him look silly. Even if some weapons were eventually to turn up, they won't help him. It is quite clear there was no vast, battle-ready arsenal. Tony Blair took us to war on a false prospectus and we cannot, as a nation, let that pass unquestioned.

The Conservatives are unintentionally helping to get the Prime Minister off the hook. Michael Howard is pursuing the wrong issue. He suggested in Parliament that the Prime Minister misled journalists in an informal briefing on a plane shortly after David Kelly died. Of course, what happened during that briefing is important, but set alongside the much greater untruth perpetrated by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction it's just a sideshow. And the Conservative leader has already conceded it's unlikely that Lord Hutton will even mention it. The problem for the Tories is that they can't credibly take on Tony Blair about the real issues because they were his principal cheerleaders for the war.

[Oggy]

1. Misled?

He is a slimy lying git. I will certainly be voting Lib Dem next time.

[ozymandius]

2. "he is looking silly"

I'd like to see him look sillier - say wearing an orange jumpsuit or horizontal stripes.

[stopbush]

3. "Whether knowingly or not, Tony Blair misled us"?

Can we put that particular POS excuse to bed?

For once and for all - bush and blair KNOWINGLY LIED THE WORLD into an illegal war in Iraq. Their reasons were simple - they both figured to gain PERSONALLY from the war (both politically and financially), along with all of their cronies. There's simply no other explanation.

Yes, many Brits' and Yanks' knee-jerk reaction is to cut slack for these two "god-fearing leaders of the free world." That's unfortunate, because these two are genocidal war criminals of the highest order whose FIRST stop should be the World Court and whose last stop should be life imprisonment in some god-forsaken work colony.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.