Blair-Bush notes on Iraq reveal early move towards military action

[sabra]

Source: DPA

London - Former British prime minister Tony Blair promised the US support for military action against Iraq in private letters as early as 2002, a former close aide said Tuesday. Alastair Campbell, Blair's spokesman and chief Labour strategist, told the inquiry into the Iraq war in London that Blair had written "quite a lot of notes" to ex-President George W Bush throughout 2002, a full year before the invasion.

"We are going to do our level best to get that through the diplomatic route, without a single shot being fired but, if push comes to shove and the diplomatic route fails, Britain would see it as its responsibility and its duty to take part in military action," Campbell said of Blair's approach.

"The prime minister wrote quite a lot of notes to the president," he added.

"I would say the tenor of them was that... we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed," said Campbell.

"If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the president," he added.

Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/303337,blair-bush-notes-on-iraq-reveal-early-move-towards-military-action.html

[napi21]

1. We all knew that. We may not have known about the notes, but

plans wre laid for sure.

[Tripmann]

2. Blair.....Hague.....NOW.

[defendandprotect]

3. Wasn't W talking about invading Iraq a year before he ran for president?

[seafan]

4. Despite the joke of our media, we KNEW ** was going to cowboy into Iraq. It was a slam dunk.

Blair-Bush notes on Iraq reveal early move towards military action, 12 Jan 2010 14:51:54 GMT




We knew.


Russ Baker, October 28, 2004

HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade... if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker."

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work - and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war - has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush's unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters - well before he became president.

.....

I hope we all live long enough to see these monsters held accountable for the lives they destroyed, in the name of greed and lust for wars.