Tony Blair will shortly be giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry about the Iraq war. Unlike other witnesses his will be behind a closed door. In what is rapidly being confirmed as an illegal and unjust war which only took place because Blair had fallen under the beguiling charms of America's idiot president George Bush. I'm sure the term idiot president will be one American text books will forget to print under his name, although it fits. While Chilcot's inquiry listens to more obdurate self arrogance from Blair a few more British Soldiers will die. I heard it said Blair now has his personal Chrimbo cards printed with the words "ex Prime Minster and hubris decision maker," I say heard because he didn't send me one by the way. For all of Gordon Brown's faults, I wish he had been in power at the time of the Iraqi war because, the one thing I believe he would not of done was to allow this country to slip into a tragedy of such a scale.
For one thing, war costs money and Brown is definitely a man who keeps an eye on finance. Or he used to be, until the recession come out of no where. Well America actually when their sub prime mortgage financial instruments were mostly brought by British bankers. Which has now led this country in to a near trillion pound depression. But I'll not go down this road because for the moment Blair is the subject.
You can not but think the manner and way in which Blair has tried to be self publicising has come back and given him a big bight on the back side. Take for instance his interview on TV with Fern Briton in which he spoke about the Iraqi war. There he took the publicity and the niceness of a cosy sofa sitting TV interview. There he knew Fern was going to be no match in asking the awkward questions, she's would give him an easy time. She did. The publicity bus has also stopped a few times for his missus Mrs Sherie Blair who feels she should be in the lime light by virtue of being the first wife. She is also a barrister in her own right and has been courted by large companies to defend their dodgy practices. Although it does make you wonder what kind of labour politics really mean to the Blair family. The Labour principles which are quite close to socialist principles have pretty much been left with the shopping when these two jumped on the big red publicity bus. Or should we say it was nearer an off red and in certain lighting conditions it looked blue. Another example of Blair's self effacing hubris can be seen in the recent European elections for a European President. He let his name be put forward but for some inescapable reason I'm sure the slip of paper it was written on got blown out of the hat. Oh dear. There goes about three and a half million pounds a year in wages.
Going back to the Chilcot inquiry, I read during the week how a number of witnesses had advised the invasion was both illegal and also how we were not prepared militarily. It is common knowledge now the dossier used to justify war in Iraq was a cut and pasted essay by a PhD student. It was only because of this dossier, words about Weapons of Mass Destruction and a claim of 45 minutes deployment which allowed Blair to get the Commons vote he wanted. He deliberately mislead parliament. Admitting on the Fern show had this not been an option he would of sort some other means to dethrone Saddam. All because the man Bush battered his eyelids and spoke softly in encouraging tones. Mind it must of helped when Blair was invited to Bush's ranch to do a little bit of cowboying. After all, there's a cow boy in all of us waiting to get out and use his six shooter. Except in Blair's case it was to get on his horse and ride hand in hand with his brand new best buddy.
