Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war (on 9-20-01)

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.

Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1185407,00.html

I've probably pushed paragrah limit aleady (!) but this comes from an article by Meyer to be published in this weeks Vanity Fair - there's more stuff in the Observer so be sure to read it all.

[Gman]

1. Our oil field trash president

intended to invade Iraq from the beginning.

[goforit]

2. Bombs away with Iraq? .......... from our beloved White Trash Duo???

I'm afraid to say that this plan was engraved in stone
in 1998 when the PNAC was sanctioned.

They just don't want anyone to know it would ever be planned
before 911.

[alfredo]

3. it was clear from day one that we were going to war with

Iraq. Saddam and his whole family could have surrendered, but that would not have been enough, bush wanted the oil.

[NashVegas]

4. Oh, junior

Junior, junior, junior.

He's so toast.

[seemslikeadream]

5. Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war

Before the call, this official says, he had the impression that the probability of invasion was high, but still below 100 per cent. Afterwards, he says, 'it was a done deal'.

As late as 9 September, Short's diary records, when Blair went to a summit with Bush and Cheney at Camp David in order to discuss final details, 'T B gave me assurances when I asked for Iraq to be discussed at Cabinet that no decision made and not imminent.' Later that day she learnt from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that Blair had asked to make 20,000 British troops available in the Gulf. She still believed her Prime Minister's assurances, but wrote that, if had she not done so, she would 'almost certainly' have resigned from the Government. At that juncture her resignation would have dealt Blair a very damaging blow.

But if Blair was misleading his own Government and party, he appears to have done the same thing to Bush and Cheney. At the Camp David meeting, Cheney was still resisting taking the case against Saddam and his alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN.

According to both Meyer and the senior Cheney official, Blair helped win his argument by saying that he could be toppled from power at the Labour Party conference later that month if Bush did not take his advice. The party constitution makes clear that this would have been impossible and senior party figures agree that, at that juncture, it was not a politically realistic statement.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1185407,00.html

[boobooday]

6. Salute the flag: BP/Mobil/Exxon

It's the rise of the new global corporate state, where the death payout for an American soldier is the same price Tyco's Koslowski paid for his shower curtain.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[54anickel]

7. What a cluster-F, and this bit about the French - the whole thing is

disgusting :puke:

Vanity Fair also discloses that on 13 January, at a lunch around the mahogany table in Rice's White House office, President Chirac's top adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, and his Washington ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, made the US an offer it should have accepted. In the hope of avoiding an open breach between the two countries, they said that, if America was determined to go to war, it should not seek a second resolution, that the previous autumn's Resolution 1441 arguably provided sufficient legal cover, and that France would keep quiet if the administration went ahead.

But Bush had already promised Blair he would seek a second resolution and Blair feared he might lose Parliament's support without it. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office legal department was telling him that without a second resolution war would be illegal, a view that Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, seemed to share at that stage. When the White House sought Blair's opinion on the French overture, he balked.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Bush and Chirac arm wrestling over Haiti

[rocktivity]

8. Well, THAT certainly explains THIS

From the Sunday Herald online:

Blair Calls Race Summit Amid Election Jitters

Tony Blair has decided to place the almost-taboo subject of race in Britain at the top of his government’s agenda and...has called a “race and immigration summit” for Tuesday...

The summit will also mark the official start of a major policy review of Britain’s post-war approach to multiculturalism. The head of the Commission for Racial Equality...who is close to Blair, said yesterday that multiculturalism in Britain was “out of date” and encouraged “separateness”..because multiculturalism in the present political era “means the wrong thing”...

In other words, deflect personal/professional disaster with a culture war wedge issue--a page right out of Rove's playbook.

[VolcanoJen]

10. Kick

The drip, drip, drip is becoming more like water torture. Get these two liars out of power NOW. I can't take much more.

[T_i_B]

11. Tony Tony Tony

Just doing whatever Bush tells you to do is NOT advancing Britain's national interest, nor has it enhanced our National Security. All Blair has been doing is trying to grab more power for himself, to the detrement of the people he was elected to serve.

[Moderator]

12. kick

too many dupes, let's get this one visible.

[Wonk]

15. kick

[Capt_Nemo]

13. bump!

[leftchick]

14. What are the chances this will be seen anywhere...

In the US media? :grr: