Iraq was terrible mistake, thinktank says

[cal04]

The decision to invade Iraq was a "terrible mistake" that would shape Tony Blair's legacy for years to come, a leading thinktank said today.

A Chatham House paper on 10 years of foreign policy under Mr Blair concluded that its root failure was an inability to influence George Bush.


(snip)
While the report said there had been qualified successes in Mr Blair's first term, the decision to provide diplomatic cover for Mr Bush's decision to invade Iraq was the defining moment of his foreign policy and premiership.

(snip)
"The jury is still out" on the extent to which Mr Blair knew the claims about Iraqi WMD were "overblown or even fabricated", the report said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1975322,00.html

[MindPilot]

1. No, it was not a mistake.

A mistake is turning the wrong way down a one-way street. A mistake is transposing a phone number and disturbing someone's dinner.

Invading Iraq was cold, calculated criminal act driven by greed and an insatiable lust for power.

Calling it a "mistake" or a "blunder" is a cop out.

[AlinPA]

2. Exactly. Power derived by being elected the second time as "war president" nt

[AlinPA]

3. (I use the term "elected" loosely)

[MindPilot]

4. I was going to point out you left off the "s".

That would be a mistake. :hi:

[cal04]

5. Iraq on brink of becoming failed state

Radical action is needed to save a "hollowed-out and fatally weakened" Iraqi state and ease violence that a new Pentagon report says is at an all-time high, a prominent think-tank warned on Tuesday.

The report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said an international effort was needed to prevent Iraq collapsing into a "failed and fragmented state" whose Shi'ite- Sunni Arab conflict could draw in its neighbours in a proxy war.

"Hollowed-out and fatally weakened, the Iraqi state today is prey to armed militias, sectarian forces and a political class that, by putting short-term personal benefit ahead of long term national interests, is complicit in Iraq's tragic destruction."

In a report on Monday, the Pentagon said the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had replaced al Qaeda as the "most dangerous accelerant of potentially self- sustaining sectarian violence in Iraq".

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1885272006