Blair loses the battle to win hearts and heads
Given the chance to convince people that his (and the US) position is justified, Mr Blair's failure was abject and surprisingly total given his smooth talking, disarming reputation.
Or maybe you just can't defend the indefensible.
Firstly, he displayed his usual tactic of mis-statement and falsehood in support of his argument on three occasions:
(a) that the inspectors had been "thrown out of Iraq in 1998;"
(b) that the sanctions regime had failed to contain Iraq (in complete contradiction of his 2000 Commons statement on the matter), and
(c) that, according to the Blix report, Iraq had failed to accommodate the inspectors properly.
In all three instances he was forced into a humiliating climbdown (thanks to the interviewing skills of Mr Paxman).
It is precisely such oft-repeated lies that have led the public to the conclusion that their leaders can't be trusted Truth and Mr Blair are uneasy bedfellows.
Secondly, his position on a second UN resolution to authorise military action was bizarre.
He asserted that while it would be desirable, Britain would not require it in the event of an 'unreasonable' veto at the UN Security Council.
The UK and the US, he said, would go ahead with military action in this event so as to defend the UN and uphold resolution 1441.
So the US-UK axis and their allies would defy the UN in order to defend the UN! Finally, he claimed that Iraq was unique for having actually used 'weapons of mass destruction.'
In fact, numerous countries America, Turkey, Germany and Britain (in Iraq itself in the 1920s when the RAF gassed Iraqi villages from the air) have used such weapons.
These countries, and Russia, still have the largest stockpiles of these weapons and indeed provided Saddam and his evil regime with such armaments not so long ago.
As for our own sorry Government, they wouldn't recognise an independent, just foreign policy position if it landed on the lawns of Leinster House. Plus ca change?
MacDara Blaney,
Binn Eadair,
Baile Átha Cliath.
