Blair's position
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared at John Chilcot Inquiry to vindicate his position in the run-up to Iraq War. His appearance is followed by a series of appearances of his key cabinet members such as Jeoff Hoon, Jack Straw, Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell, Lord Goldsmith. Blair talked in evangelical tone defending his move in the light of JIC report and September 24,2002 dossier and expressed no regret for the war. He said that he did believe back then the proliferation threat of WMDs by Iraq was obvious although it has been refuted by the Butler Inquiry. He defended the idea of regime change and branded Saddam Hussein a profoundly wicked and psychopathic man referring to his use of chemical weapons at Halaja village. What staggers us to hear is that according to him, Iraq was a security threat to international communities and had the capability to launch an offensive on Britain's territory within 45minutes.Does not it smell fishy? He tells the reason he gave weight to military action was because contentment through UN route did not pay off.
But we know that they were deliberately incommunicado to settle it through UN routes. Blair tries to make the ground reality hunky-dory claiming that child mortality has dropped from 130 to 40 per thousand and power supply has been stepped up immensely to meet the growing demand and so on. But the inconvenient truth is that invasion of Iraq has opened up a Pandora's Box.
Extremists run amuck to kill the undesirable aliens causing civilian fatalities. Sectarian hatred has been fomented and corruption is all-pervasive. Isn't it a 'stunning achievement' to disarm Iraq from WMDs at the cost of millions of civilian lives?
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