Letter to the Editor of The Times
Sir
Matthew Parris is as acute as ever in his analysis of the political build-up to the Iraq war (Nov 28, 2009).
But he must be mistaken in thinking Tony Blair to be guilty of mere miscalculation over WMDs, as if that were exculpation enough. For one thing, Blair is very clearly also guilty of deceit, since he long knew George W. Bush was dead set on invasion and yet claimed that the matter hinged on the UN weapons inspections.
Secondly, Blair appears to have followed Eden at Suez in commissioning dubious legal advice in order to prop up the case for war, as I first pointed out in The Spectator in November 2003.
And thirdly, there remains a genuine question whether the government manipulated the presentation of evidence to make the best case for war, regardless of the truth.
The evidence is now overwhelming that Tony Blair knew as early as their Crawford, Texas meeting in April 2002 that President Bush was moving towards war; that he persuaded Bush that he (Blair) could only deliver the UK if they jointly took "the UN route"; and that Bush accepted this essentially political analysis, despite his extreme scepticism about the UN.
Blair proved unable to obtain the second resolution that would have made the war legal. Bush then called Blair on his pledge to help, despite the lack of a resolution, while evidence continued to mount that there were no WMDs to be found. Blaming the French for the lack of a second resolution was a last desperate and dishonest expedient to avoid humiliation.
Missing from this is evidence of any genuine engagement by Blair with the UK's long-term national interest. But the specific issue here is not the justifiability or no of the Iraq war. It is whether even Blair's limited claim to have acted sincerely, if mistakenly, at all times can be sustained.
It cannot. There remains good reason for him to be held publicly accountable for his actions in office.
Yours,
Jesse Norman
Conservative parliamentary candidate
Hereford, UK
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