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Iraq Inquiry: Deal Might have been ‘Signed in Blood’ by Blair and Bush in 2002
Sir Christopher Meyer told the Iraq Inquiry that the two men spent an afternoon meeting in private at the former president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, which appeared to lead to a shift in the then Prime Minister's stance on Iraq.
Sir Christopher said: "I took no part in any of the discussions and there was a large chunk of that time when no adviser was there.
"The two men were alone in the ranch so I'm not entirely clear to this day what degree of convergence (on Iraq policy) was signed in blood, if you like, at the Crawford ranch.
"But there are clues in the speech Tony Blair gave the next day, which was the first time he had said in public ‘regime change'. He was trying to draw the lessons of 9/11 and apply them to the situation in Iraq which led - I think not inadvertently but deliberately - to a conflation of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
"When I read that I thought ‘this represents a tightening of the UK/US alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger Saddam Hussein presented'."
Sir Christopher, who was Britain's ambassador to the US between 1997 and 2003, was called to give evidence about the changing nature of British and American policy towards Iraq in the two years before the invasion of March 2003.
Before the September 11 attacks on the US, Iraq was a low priority for the Bush administration, which was already "running out of steam", said Sir Christopher.
But the terrorist attacks immediately elevated Iraq towards the top of the US agenda.
"On 9/11 itself in the course of the day I had a telephone conversation with (then national security adviser) Condoleezza Rice and I said ‘who do you think did it?' She said: ‘There's no doubt it was an Al-Qaeda operation.' At the end of the conversation she said: ‘We're just looking at the possibility that there could be any link to Saddam Hussein.'
"That little reference to him, by the following weekend, turned into a big debate between Bush and his advisers."
Sir Christopher said hardliners in the Bush administration became increasingly convinced that Saddam was linked to Al-Qaeda, largely because of intelligence which proved to be wrong.
He said: "Paul Wolfowitz (then US deputy defence secretary) was quite convinced that there was a strong connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. There was a constant reference to the fact that Mohammed Atta (one of the 9/11 hijackers) had met Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague. That wasn't true, but you couldn't dig it out of the bloodstream of certain members of the US administration.
"There was another idea that there was an Al-Qaeda camp on the Iraqi border where Saddam would allow them to do things. That wasn't true either."
Sir Christopher said the US Department of Defense became so "irritated" by the CIA's "bias" against this incorrect intelligence that a "rival and replacement" in-house intelligence unit was set up by the White House.
The former ambassador said that when he first met President Bush in 1999, before he was elected, Mr Bush told him: "I don't know much about foreign policy. I'm going to have to learn pretty damn fast. I'm going to have to surround myself with good people."
Sir Christopher said Mr Bush's key advisers at the time - known as the Vulcans - included Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair immediately struck up a good relationship when they first met in 2001, said Sir Christopher, and during subsequent international conferences "Condoleezza Rice once said to me that the only human being (Bush) felt he could talk to was Tony, and the rest were creatures from outer space".
Sir Christopher said Tony Blair's speech immediately after 9/11, in which he promised to support America in its hour of need, "sealed Tony Blair's reputation in America, which remains sealed to this day".
"Wherever you went, people would rise to their feet and give you a warming round of applause. You had to be careful not to be swept away by this stuff."
Sir Christopher said Mr Blair's decision to support the US invasion was not "as poodle-ish" as has been suggested by critics, as he was "a true believer about the wickedness of Saddam Hussein" as early as 1998.
After Tony Blair came out in support of regime change in April 2002, Britain hoped Saddam could be removed by a combination of diplomatic pressure and the threat of force, which Mr Blair hoped would lead to Saddam either stepping down or being toppled by an internal coup.
But after President Bush set out a timetable for an invasion, the shortage of time meant that "instead of Saddam proving his innocence we had to prove his guilt by finding a smoking gun. We have never really recovered from that because there was no smoking gun".
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34 Comments so far
Show AllHistory now validates that Sadam Huesein had nothing to do with the tragedy of 9-11. Thus Bush Cheney, Blair and the neocons pushed us into the Iraq war based on lies. Is this the transparency required of democracies?
"Is this the transparency required of democracies?" This is a sick country led by sick people with sick agendas.
That the US is a democracy is one of the most powerful illusions that Americans must overcome.
"The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only, in the 20th century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered."
from “Democracy Incorporated” (2008) by Sheldon Wolin (p.228)
They lead the people who followed, for enough didn't, but not enough to prevent the war, based on lies. Yes. And they did this [deliberately]; that is, they knew they were lying, instead of having been grossly mistaken. They were mistaken, but not about whether or not they were lying, for they knew they were. They were mistaken in another sense. F.e., it's a major mistake to accept to be extreme criminals like these people were and remain. Based on their temporal living, living in the temporal frame of life, they likely don't perceive that they were badly mistaken or made a huge mistake, but maybe the fact that they did will eventually come to seriously affect them even while still living in the temporal lives that they presently still have.
They definitely knew they were lying. Rumsfeld also knew he was lying when demanding that the initial CIA team of analysts working to provide him with the most accurate, truthful information they could wouldn't comply with his demands and he, therefore, replaced them with team of yes-men or -doers; he clearly didn't want the truth, he clearly rejected it and damn-well knew what he was doing. Cheney knows he continues to lie every time he repeats his claim about the non-existent ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qa'ida or Osama Bin Laden, which I think to have read about him doing again this year. Or maybe it's the non-existent WMDs that he was again pretending to have existed, but am pretty sure it's the Al Qaeda tie that he spoke of. Tony Blair knew that he was lying about the supposed ability of Iraq to be able to strike a western country within 45-minutes or to be able to launch a strike within that time frame.
They definitely knew they were lying and about plenty of things, including every time they pretend that things have to be kept secret on the grounds of "national security", "national interests" and "international relations".
They know that they hardly ever speak the truth about anything important; when speaking to the public anyway. They know and they knew.
And still the horrific crime, for which we well know the perpetrators, goes unpunished. This is a great omission of Justice and threatens civilization and the rule of law in a critical way!! Bring these war criminals to Justice if it's that last thing we do!!!
... we had to prove his guilt by finding a smoking gun.
This seems to be a 'smoking gun' that can hang Bush, Blair and Howard as they did to Saddam...
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearle and the rest of the Neocons in collusion with Israeli Zionist leadership and the mega-rich, mega-powerful actual leaders behind the curtain, pulled off a very well-planned, well-timed Happening.
It certainly was enough to "solve," resolve a lot of their problems, and fulfill some great expectations with more to come.
The information and evidence is out there, and there is no other conclusion to be reached that initially in the new 21st Century, approximately 3,000 people became the sacrificial lambs to the Dream ... the Realization of Empire and eventually a One-World Government governed by Guess Who?
Now more than a million and a half civilians are dead, casualties of just these two bogus wars. Expect more deaths and more wars as the planet is plundered, especially in third-world countries.
And even though lies are being exposed, there has to be a U.S. Mainstream news media for The People of the U.S. that provides them with the Truth. Unfortunately that is not the case.
And today the majority of people will eat their turkey dinners and still be unaware that they have been taken on a one-way ride that is fast getting out of control, and this day they celebrate as Thanksgiving has a bloody, bloody history of extermination of as many as 15 million native peoples on this continent alone.
Time to WAKE UP!!! Time to change The Story.
/cm
they mean signed in OTHER PEOPLE's BLOOD....
"Before the September 11 attacks on the US, Iraq was a low priority for the Bush administration, which was already "running out of steam", said Sir Christopher."
Bullshit.
Read Rebuilding "America's Defences" by the chickenhawk wackos at Project for a New American Century....
"The USA has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in the Gulf...the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the justification..for a substantial American force in the Gulf."
Also, Treasury Sec. Snow said in his book that from daay #1, attacking Iraq was a top priority, which apparantly was a major factor in his resignation.
The lie machine is in overdrive.
Rayner sez: "Before the September 11 attacks on the US, Iraq was a low priority for the Bush administration, which was already 'running out of steam', said Sir Christopher."
***
This line also brought my reading to a screeching halt, mujeriego. It is unfortunate to see Sir Christopher's credibility undermined by this kind of obvious falsehood.
Iraq was Priority 1 even before this crime syndicate got into office. That never changed.
mujeriego,
Absolutely. Like this 1st para. of a Kristol/Kagan letter to the NY Times, Jan. 30, 1998 establishing the motive, the famous WMDs, for "regime change" in Iraq:
"Saddam Hussein must go. This imperative may seem too simple for some experts and too daunting for the Clinton Administration. But if the United States is committed, as the President said in his State of the Union Message, to insuring that the Iraqi leader never again uses weapons of mass destruction, the only way to achieve that goal is to remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power. Any policy short of that will fail."
This is more than enough evidence to force Blair into a war crimes trail with charges of crimes against humanity in the Hague.
At the same time, it provides enough exculpatory evidence to charge the entire US government with the same charge, including the present US President, Barrak Obama who approved of the actions of then President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the US Government and military.
In fact, this testimony is evidence enough to bring to trial every single government that has participated in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, including that of Canada.
A pre-emptive war of aggression, with the invasion and occupation of a sovereign state is *THE* single greatest crime under the Geneva Convention, short of genocide.
And the US, UK and all of NATO are guilty.
It is time to hold these rogue governments to account.
>>In fact, this testimony is evidence enough to bring to trial every single government that has participated in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, including that of Canada
A lot of people are under the impression that Various NATO forces in Afghanistan were sent there under the "Mutual self defense agreement".
This is not the case.
The ISAF forces were authorized by the UN and its security council under various resolutions. In fact Chretien indicated it would not send troops to Afghanistan without such a resolution.
ISAF forces did not enter Afghanistan until after the US/UK forces toppled Taliban leaving that Country without any Government. They only entered that country AFTER The UN issued a resolution authorizing entry of said forces (Security resolution 1510 and others) Initially the mandate was limited to Kabul and Canada did not send its forces outside Kabul until further resolutions expanded mandates to the rest of the Country.
The US forces that Invaded and occupied Afghanistan did so without any Security Council resolution.
ISAF participant countries do have "legal cover".
This in no way means I support their prescence there or of the attack made on Iraq by the USA to topple the taliban.
It my feeling the UN processes are being manipulated to garner support for a permament occuptaion of that country by western forces. Both China and Russia supported the initial resolution authorizing the ISAF but did so for reasons of their own.
The Security Council is a corrupt body.
'Regime change' in Iraq was [definitely] planned well before 9-11, which only served as a pretext to present to the public for pretending that this war was supposedly justifiable, which we could immediately know it wasn't, and which we had irrefutable proof of being unjustifiable when the Bush administration criminally forced an end to the weapons inspections that were greatly successful for Iraq, and greatly damning for the Bush administration.
Anyway, the 'regime change' was definitely planned at least starting in January 2001. And the Bush administration clearly did deliberately let the 9-11 attacks happen, or did even worse than just allow them.
As others have pointed out, there should be trials, but if anything confirms that there is only one party in the US-call it the war party or the finance capital party-it is the refusal of the Democratic "Party" to prosecute Bush and Co. Why? Because this is a completely bipartisan crime.
As for Tony Blair, the prime minister representing "New Labor" he represents the hostile takeover of the labor party by the forces of finance capital. How sad.
"there should be trials"
.
Yes, there should be. But there won't be. This is a case where a rich Aryan-like nation has attacked one of its untermensch resource colonies, and has gotten other Aryan countries to sign on as rich co-conspirators.
What are the odds of a trial when you've got more lawyers than any other country in the world?
Sir Christopher: " before the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Iraq was a low priority for the Bush Administration". That has to be one of the most sophomoric and moronic statements I have heard in a long while on Iraq and is right up there with: they hate us for our freedoms or Saddam has WMD's. Slick Willie had sanctions on Iraq that starved and killed thousands of Iraqi's many years before Bush was the President selected in 2000 and it would make this post too long to list all the reasons why this is either a bald faced lie and a canard or something said out of extreme, ignorance.
Thankyou. That needed to be said.
Yes, there should be other 'documents signed in blood', too, to be found by Liberal Democrats. Like the one signed in blood between the Democratic and Republican Parties. However it is just too easy to blame it all on Tony Blair of England and Dubya the Clown of Texas instead, I guess? If it just wasn't for those two on the Crawford ranch we would not have all bee led so astray! Meanwhile Obama pushes more troops into Afghanistan and Liberal Democrats do not protest because it would be too unruly of them to do so.
Merely another tidbit of evidence to what the majority of this site's habituates know well: the Iraq fiasco was preplanned & 9/11 was the excuse. The justifications were made up as they went along (a lot like their incompetent war planning as well), and the whole thing was a half-baked tragedy for most involved. The further away the USA emerges from the Bush error and the UK steps away from the reign of Blair, the worse the hindsight / judgment of history becomes for all involved.
There's no greater crime than taking a nation into war on false pretenses. Question is, why isn't Obama doing something about it? Why doesn't he simply instruct his Justice Dept. to investigate and prosecute war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.?
Because: during the 8 years of Bush in the White House, Obama and Democrats were aiders, abettors, co-conspirators, facilitators, financial beneficiaries, accessories and accomplices in each and every of Bush's crimes to further American hegemony on the globe. Bush would drag them down with him in a New York minute.
That's what happens when you vote for Tweedledee to oppose Tweedledum.
uncle_charlie: "Why isn't Obama doing something about it? Why doesn't he simply instruct his Justice Dept. to investigate and prosecute war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc."
I'll tell you why Uncle Charlie. In an interview with Daniel on October 24, 1963 Kennedy said, “I approved the proclamation Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we will have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.”
Kennedy was dead less than one month later. Any future President can see in technicolor what happens to Presidents who blaspheme like JFK did. It would take a President with balls like JFK to prosecute the war criminals, and Obama is no JFK.
That Obama is no JFK we knew all along. That he was able to fool millions pretending that he was is what's remarkable.
Bad enough that the deal was signed in blood in early 2002, while Bush repeated LIED to the nation about how his mind hadn't been made up yet - the big fraud of deliberation on a war already set.
But the inquiry ever so briefly discusses the Bush White House prior to 9-11. I couldn't find the quote, but I thought I heard on the BBC a mention that the Bush administration had talked about attacking Iraq within a month of his inauguration. Here is the only reference to pre-excuse of 9-11 war planning I could find:
The UK government "distanced itself" from talk of removing Saddam Hussein in early 2001 despite concerns about his threat, the Iraq inquiry has been told.
Sir Peter Ricketts, a top intelligence official at the time, said it was assumed it was not "our policy" despite growing talk in the US about the move.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8375439.stm
This war was being planned well before 9-11, when Bush was eventually shoved into office by decree - this because the media's story of us all wanting to have a beer with the EDUCATION PRESIDENT almost failed to get him elected. The would-be education president appointed the vulcan war council. Hmmm.
again - no surprises here.
In June or July of 2002, an armada of British ships set out for Iraq. I knew that the big decisions had already been taken and the rest was just lies.
While a sat in a plaza, a lady whom I knew approached me and asked me why I seemed sad. I had never spoken politics to her before, but I told her that I was sad about international politics.
I told her that WMD issue was a farce, and that Tony Blair's words about persuading Saddam to abide by international war was just part of the sales patter to us, not to Saddam. I said that the ships would not have set out if war was not the intention and that we were about to lie our way into a war no matter what. I said it was really about Iraq's young and plenty oilfields where oil where sweet crude oil could be extracted with little cost.
Old news, even if it is being "revealed for the first time" the way virtually all news flashes are now. What we knew 6 years ago is treated as a startling new and shocking report. And of course it will lead to no more than it did way back when. NOTHING will come of this. It's just something else we'll have to forget (see Neal Gabler's piece here today) until we're reminded of it again in a year or 3 or 4, when we'll forget about it all over again.
Because they will not do a goddamn thing to prosecute, investigate honestly or anything else that Bush and Blair did, illegally, based on oceans of lies they told each other and got their gullible quislings to believe.
Crime marches on, in a new chapter under Obama the Deluded and Complicit, and we're Free to read all about it, and witness nothing ever being done about any of it.
RE - Sir Christopher said: "I took no part in any of the discussions and there was a large chunk of that time when no adviser was there. "The two men were alone in the ranch so I'm not entirely clear to this day what degree of convergence (on Iraq policy) was signed in blood, if you like, at the Crawford ranch.
SEE - "Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal?" - Commentators, Opinion - The Independent, 11/22/09
EXCERPT - When Bush tried to persuade President Chirac to go to war, Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Gog and Magog, obscure legendary figures named in the book of Ezekiel as enemies of the people of Israel. This sounds like a joke, but seems to be true. Chirac was baffled and his staff consulted a professor of theology who spilt the beans. Blair told his Iraq experts that Saddam was "uniquely evil"; the inquiry should ask him whether Bush mentioned Gog and Magog to him, or he to Bush.
ENTIRE COMMENTARY - http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/
oliver-miles-the-key-question-ndash-is-blair-a-war-criminal-1825374.html
see: http://www.forteantimes.com/features/fortean_traveller/99/the_gog_magog_hills_uk.html
Does anyone know what the end results of these hearings will be? Can Blair be prosecuted, etc.?
-TIA
Meanwhile, o-liar sits back and does nothing, while he could easily bring them to justice. The majority of the country and world would back him. But Barry knows which side his bread is buttered on.
If nothing else convinces those fooled into voting for him what Barack's all about, this travesty should. Bush and Cheney should be hanged as war criminals, and everyone who obviously helped get the USA into an illegal war should be brought to trial.
There's still time, Obama. Why won't you do the right thing?
I thought "give 0 a chance."
as soon as he didn't arrest the bush gang on day one, he'd blown it.
How can Obomba do the right thing when he is part of the problem and is now an accessory after the fact and is complict in the war crimes of Bush and Cheney? When he said: "I want to look forward" that was his copout,because any honest broker would have said: before I look forward, I need to take care of some unfinished business of pursuing the war crimes of the previous administration.