Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

9/11

- 11th September 2001 - the USA was subjected to the deadliest act of terror it had ever experienced in its own homeland
- Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial aircraft
- Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, causing both to collapse
- The third plane was piloted into the Pentagon, while the fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the passengers fought with the hijackers
- The death toll was nearly 3,000, the victims being from nearly every race on Earth
- The reaction of the US was to begin what became known as the 'war on terror'

- Blair immediately committed himself to that war
- He announced that Britain, 'stood shoulder to shoulder with our American friends' in the struggle 'between the free and democratic world and terrorism'
- The attacks of 9/11 and their aftermath turned him into President George W. Bush's closet and most dependable ally, a relationship that was to shape the remainder of Blair's partnership
- A month after 9/11, Blair sent British troops to support US forces in their attack upon al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan

Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

Iraq and WMDs (2002)

- In September 2002, Blair quoted from a Dossier (later called in the press as the 'dodgy dossier' because it proved to be wrongly based on false information) passed to him by Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee which claimed to have evidence that 'Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme is 'active, detailed and growing' - justification for invading Iraq
- Blair denied than an invasion was inevitable; he said the aim of the USA and Britain was to work through the UN to bring about regime change in Iraq

- Blair was initially insistent that Bush should take no action until the UN had formally resolved to back the Western allies
- There had already been a first UN Resolution (No. 1441, passed in November 2002) requiring Saddam Hussain to prove to UN weapons inspectors that he had abandoned all his WMDs as he was required to do by the peace settlement that followed the First Gulf War in 1991 - this did not authorise the armed invasion of Iraq; to achieve this there would have to be a second and new UN resolution

- The possibility of gaining a second and new UN resolution to authorise an invasion of Iraq rapidly disappeared when Russia and China made it clear veto
- Bush, feeling that opposition from those two countries arose from mischievous power politics rather than being a principled objection, decided to go ahead with the invasion plan
- At a third key meeting, Bush, aware of the difficulty Blair would have in convincing his cabinet and the Labour Party, offered the PM the chance to withdraw
- But Blair, describing the fight against tyranny as 'the most fundamental issue of our time', declined to back out of the invasion
- He tried to gain support from Europe but failed; most significantly, France and Germany found the grounds for military intervention unconvincing

Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

The Iraq War (2003)

- On 20th March 2003 American and British forces began the illegal invasion of Iraq without formal new UN sanction, international community support and, in Britain's case, in the face of fierce opposition at home
- Mass peace demonstrations were held in London, other UK cities and across the world
- Robin Cook, the Former Foreign Secretary, who had advocated an ethical foreign policy, resigned from Blair's government in protest at the illegal invasion, declaring in his Commons resignation speech that the war had 'neither international agreement nor domestic support.'

- The military operation in Iraq proved highly and rapidly successful
- By the middle of April 2003 Saddam Hussain's forced were broken and the allies declared that the 'major combat' was over and that they could declare 'mission accomplished'
- In the rush to war, insufficient time had been devoted to planning what would follow the victory
- The toppling of Saddam Hussain may have removed a vicious oppressor of his people but it did not lead to peace.
- Indeed, civil war followed, with rival Muslim and regional factions fighting each other

Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

No WMDs

- The problems that the Iraq War created for Blair were intensified by the failure to discover any evidence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
- The suicide in July 2003 of Dr David Kelly, a WMD expert working for the Ministry of Defence, depended the gloom and stimulated the furore relating to the illegal Iraq War.
- Two months before his death, Dr David Kelly had confided to a BBC journalist his concerns that the government had exaggerated the findings in the JIC 'Dodgy Dossier' on which Blair had based his reasons for going to war

- The journalist, Andrew Gilligan, then went public on radio and in the press, accusing the government of having 'sexed up' the dossier largely at the prompting of Alistair Campbell, Chief Spin Doctor
- It was after being revealed as Gilligan's source that Dr David Kelly had taken his own life
- The government immediately set up an inquiry, which under the chairmanship of Lord Hutton, examined the circumstances of Dr David Kelly's death
- Among the 70 witnesses were the Prime Minister Tony Blair himself and Alistair Campbell
- When the inquiry published its findings in January 2004, it cleared the government of any direct involvement in Dr David Kelly's tragic death

- But what the Hutton Report did not, and could not, do was lift the thickening cloud of doubt about the legality and morality of the Blair government decision to illegally invade Iraq

Topic 6, Lesson 14: Blair and the Iraq War

Counter claims against linkages between Iraq War and the 2005 London bombings

- Jihadist terrorism, as in the case of 9/11, pre-dated the Iraq War
-The Anglo-American military campaigns fought since the 1990s had been undertaken largely to protect Muslim people and interests like in Kuwait (1991), Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999)

- By far the greater number of Muslim deaths were caused by other Muslims
- Even though the Iraq had not developed WMD, its leader, Saddam Hussain, had had the money and will to produce such weapons. Had he not been brought down by the Anglo-American invasion in 2003, the world might at some point might well have to deal with a nuclear-armed Iraq