Tony Blair's note told President Bush 'count on us'/Blair discussed regime change with Bush (Dec 01)

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

Tony Blair privately assured US President George Bush "you can count on us" in the run up to the Iraq war.

The private note will remain secret - despite calls for it to be published by Iraq inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot.

But Mr Blair, who is being grilled by the inquiry for a second time, summed up their contents for panel members.

He also revealed he disregarded Lord Goldsmith's warning that attacking Iraq would be illegal without further UN backing because it was "provisional".


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12246410

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Blair discussed regime change with Bush

Tony Blair has begun giving evidence to the official inquiry into the Iraq War for the second time.

He was asked back to face questions about apparent gaps and inconsistencies in his evidence last year.

Mr Blair acknowledged that he had discussed the prospects for regime change in Iraq in a telephone conversation with President Bush in December 2001.

From (Incl. video clip form the inquiry): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12248171

Live stream & archives of the inquiry: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

[think4yourself]

1. December '01

They went right to regime change, I thought it was about the non-existing WMD?!

:nuke:

[Botany]

3. "al Qaeda will no longer have a safe home to work from" W bush

Rough quote from W's mission accomplished speech.

The whole thing was about oil and money.

[KansDem]

4. Yeah, after W assured us he would not engage in "nation building"

Bush Backs Into Nation Building

"Let me tell you what else I'm worried about: I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place."

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 26

Speaking to a cheering crowd in Chattanooga, Tenn., one day before the Nov. 7, 2000, election, George W. Bush repeated a line that had by then been a standard part of the stump speech for many, many months--and one that now seems, in the face of looming U.S. military action in Iraq, quite contradictory.

"Let me tell you what else I'm worried about: I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place."

The line was an explicit condemnation of Clinton/Gore foreign policy--specifically that the White House had stretched the military too thin with peacekeeping mission in Haiti, Somalia and the Balkans. President Clinton and Vice President Gore, his Democratic opponent, had strayed from the central mission of the military: to fight and win wars, Bush said.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1710.htm

Fucking liar...

[No Elephants]

7. Bush mentioned regime change publicly. I saw/heard him on tv. I wish I

could remember the details.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Blue_Tires]

5. Where are OUR Iraq inquiries?

[goforit]

6. The price per gallon of gas was far less when Saddam was in power