Blair Justifies Iraq Invasion

The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, still maintains that the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein were justified, even if it had been known that he had no weapons of mass destruction. Blair’s argument is that Saddam Hussein and his two sons were a major threat to the region. Originally, Blair had claimed that Hussein was capable of launching a missile attack on any of his neighbors within 45 minutes.

Is this latest statement, made in a BBC interview, really a valid reason, or is it simply an attempt to justify a major blunder in judgment that that has led to costly wars and which, above all, threatens his legacy?

I have always thought higher of Blair than of the man he followed like a lackey into Iraq, seemingly blindly, yapping excitedly at his heels, but no more! The man he followed in the spirit of some weird bromance, ex-President George W. Bush, has also attempted to justify the Iraq debacle by stating that it was a good thing to do, even without the WMDs. Remember that it was Bush who was determined to attack Iraq, regardless, to “finish Daddy’s war.” It was Bush who jumped to the conclusion that Iraq was the culprit behind the World Trade Center attacks and ordered his people to find evidence to support his assumption.

If it was justified to go into Iraq regardless, as Blair claims, because the country’s loathsome leaders were a threat to the region, why haven’t we invaded North Korea? Why not invade Venezuela? Cuba? Iran? “We” think of them as threats to their regions and have said so publicly. By Blair’s justification, we are entitled to invade these countries, even if they have no WMDs. Why not Israel? And it does have WMDs.

Following September 2001, only the invasion of Afghanistan can be justified. The invasion of Iraq was never the right thing to do, despite the grim, unsavory nature of its leader. The WMD “intelligence” was always suspect and not supported by the UN inspectors. It was ego that that drove the decision, and no number of after-the-act excuses can justify that blunder, Tony.