Tony Blair deserves kudos

It wasn't big news on this side of the pond, but back in February, former British prime Minister Tony Blair was called to testify at an enquiry being held - in England - on the Iraq theatre of this Global War on Terror. Via The Thunder Run, I came across a wonderful assessment of Mr Blair's testimony. Christopher S Carson writes in the New English Review:

The Worst of Intentions

by Christopher S. Carson (March 2010)

“Dr. Spertzel, it is not a lie when you are ordered to lie.”
–Dr. “Germ” Rihab Taha, former head of Saddam’s bioweapons program, in response to UNSCOM inspectors when asked why she continued to lie in the face of proof, 1995

Although it hardly made the American news, the Rt. Hon. Anthony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007, was called to the hot seat in London in February, testifying before Britain’s Chilcot “Iraq Inquiry” in what was ubiquitously referred to as his “Day of Judgment.” It seemed the political and media classes in Great Britain expected him to beat his breast in biblical lamentation for his vile sin of deposing Saddam Hussein’s monstrous regime in 2003. Perhaps the media and political classes at least hoped to see him sweat, or even see him beg for forgiveness, the way Richard Clarke did when he testified histrionically before the 9-11 Commission just as his Bush-bashing book hit the stores.

A ferocious crowd of some 400 protesters, outside the front entrance of the Queen Elizabeth Centre, bayed for his blood like animals—yelling that he was a murderer and a liar. Blair’s car slipped in the back entrance, in what the media all referred to as a “sneaky” maneuver. (Evidently Fleet Street thought it more honorable for him to be pelted with the fake blood and then lynched for real at the front doorway.)

The prospect of actually destroying Mr. Blair’s life as he knows it is not as far-fetched as it might sound. Earlier, the Inquiry heard from two senior Foreign Office lawyers, Sir Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst. They told the Iraq inquiry the invasion was against international law and amounted to a “crime of aggression”. For his part, “Human rights lawyer” Sir Geoffrey Bindman yesterday said there was a case for taking action against Mr Blair for waging an unlawful war. He said: “I would not be surprised if a prosecution were attempted in the UK. The difficulty would be to establish his personal responsibility for specific crimes against UK law.” Sir Geoffrey added that there would be serious difficulties in making the case but these were not “insurmountable.”

But Mr. Blair disappointed them all. "The decision I took - and frankly would take again - was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) we should stop him," he said. "That was my view then and that is my view now." [ emphasis mine]

Go read more here.