Blair, Bush and Iraq: Five more years

March 13, 2013

"What did you do in the war, grandaddy?"

"Well, TEN years ago, I sat in Downing Street and Camp David and Hillsborough Castle watching President Blair (and some not very keen colleagues, right) try to remake the world as he would have liked it to be".

"What exactly did you do yourself?"

"If you read The Times this morning, you will find out."

"Do you always write a piece when there's a birthday for the Iraq War?"

"It seems like it".

"Well, in 2007 I went back to see the Iraqi women who had warned Mr Blair (as he was then) how Baghdad politics wasn't quite like the Westminster kind. He didn't want to know. It was in The Times Magazine. Our friend, Gill Morgan, was the editor and godmother of the project.

Then in 2008, I looked back at my notes and wrote about how everyone in Downing Street as the war came nearer talked about football all the time.

Look it up."

And after that, there were tens of thousands of words in those blue files over there, one for each of my Thirty Days.

It was a long time before newspapers grew tired of remembering Tony Blair and George W. Bush and the things they tried to do.

Was the President of Europe on our side then, grandaddy?

"Tony Blair was only British Prime Minister in 2003. So yes, he was on our side. It's a bit hard to explain."

Comments

[Andrew Kenneally]

But what was it Bush & Blair were trying to do? I think we extend the most ludicrous of benefits of the doubt to these people and their aspirations. The tree shall be known by its fruit. What kind of world and for who are they really shaping?
I'm just reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness- a masterpiece- which I wrongfully made some negative remarks about here some months back-and scorn is attributed to the false motivating front of 'civilizing the natives' that the brutal regimes used to mask their evil actions. 'Spreading democracy' and similar clap-trap the latest lies we're expected to follow.