[A-List] UK state: Iraq crisis

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Here is a Labour MP unfavourably comparing Tony with no less than Margaret
Thatcher. That's a low blow. But it's another nail in Blair's coffin.
Meanwhile more reference is made to the real plots of the 1970s. While jokey
jokey, there must be a strong temptation within the corridors of power that
this potential Pandora's box should be closed and put away as quickly as
possible. Engineering Tony's resignation over a loss of public trust would
be the cleanest way of doing it. Otherwise, given the ample evidence that
exists of MI5 skullduggery during the 1970s, there is a good chance that
there would develop some sort of movement for a more rigorous control of the
intelligence services, precisely what MI6 et al do not want. So, in this
respect, they must be as careful as possible as to the hazards involved in
this very high stakes game. Wright (no relation to Peter, I presume)
suggests widening the terms of the inquiry, in the most obsequiously
toadying fashion, in the best style of the knife-wielding courtier. A
broader inquiry would suit MI6 down to the ground, since it would more
squarely focus on Tony's rationale for war and dilute attention on
intelligence materials. Thereby making it easier to skewer Tony on the trust
issue.

Meanwhile Reid must now be portrayed as one who has lost his marbles, lest
his allegations yesterday (and at any time in the future) add weight to more
general calls to investigate the intelligence services. Getting rid of Blair
would be the easiest way of demoting Reid to backbench irrelevance, in
addition to removing the Brown impediment to eurozone membership. Prime
Minister Hain and Chancellor of the Exchequer Cook would then have a
reasonably free hand prior to the next election.

Michael Keaney

------

Blair is sure. Now he must convince us

An inquiry into the Iraq war would be a bold sign of strength

Tony Wright
Thursday June 5, 2003
The Guardian

Compare and contrast. Here is Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons on
July 8 1982, announcing the nature of the Falklands war inquiry: "The
overriding considerations are that it should be independent, that it should
command confidence, that its members should have access to all relevant
papers and persons and that it should complete its work speedily." Now here
is Tony Blair, in the Commons yesterday: "I have answered the allegations."

There is a further contrast. The 1982 inquiry had wide terms of reference to
"review the way in which the responsibilities of government in relation to
the Falkland Islands and their dependencies were discharged in the period
leading up to the Argentine invasion". The Iraq inquiry to be conducted by
the intelligence and security committee will have a narrow focus on the
intelligence issue. It will not, in other words, attempt to answer the real
question, which is why we went to war when we did.

The difficulty in getting a clear answer to that question before the war has
continued since - except that the fog has grown even denser - with assorted
allegations swirling around, now including the extraordinarily serious
charge by a leading cabinet minister that there are "rogue elements" in the
security services. Not since the 1970s, when plots by generals to take over
the country were regularly rumoured, have we had such excitements.

What does all this tell us about Tony Blair? He clearly does believe that he
has answered all the allegations. He is irked, even affronted, that they
should be made at all. "Absurd" is one of his favourite words. He does not
believe that vultures should be fed or they will keep coming back for more.
More than any previous prime minister, his style of governing is intensely
personal. He routinely speaks of "my" rather than "our". When things get
rough, he makes issues into matters of personal trust and integrity.

This was Mr Blair's war. While many of us were anguishing about it, he was
single-minded and resolute throughout. His narrative remained clear and
honest. No serious link with al-Qaida or terrorism was claimed. Although the
liberation of the Iraqi people from tyranny would be a happy by-product of
war, it would not be its cause or justification. It all came down to weapons
of mass destruction and the failure to disarm. Even when UN cover could not
be obtained, this was why war was nevertheless necessary.

If there were difficulties with this argument before the war (was Iraq
really a threat to anybody? Why abort the inspection process?), they are as
nothing compared with the postwar difficulties of explaining why the basis
for the alleged threat has not been established. No wonder those who saw
Iraq as the George Bush re-election war, or the war for US strategic
interests in the region, feel vindicated.

Perversely, as one of those who did not support the government, I take a
rather different view. The only war I would have supported would have been
one to remove a totalitarian monster. But this was expressly not the war on
offer. Wars are a serious business and it is not surprising that people want
to know the reasons for them.

This is why a full inquiry is needed. Here the prime minister will have to
overcome his instincts. It is not an affront to personal integrity to try to
establish in a democracy what happened. Notice how Mr Blair often refers in
a very personal way to his responsibility for what happens "on my watch".
This betrays an old-fashioned sense of public duty, a felt obligation to do
some good while he is at the nation's helm. If he has an ideology, this is
probably it. He sometimes seems to have an almost Gladstonian sense of the
need to account to history (and to himself, and perhaps to his God) for what
he has been doing. It is also why one day, at a moment of his own choosing,
he will stop doing it.

These are attractive qualities, at least to me. They are part of the sense
in which he is not an ordinary party politician, certainly not the sort of
politician who sits in a party bunker and only sees the world through the
narrow slit of light that enters. In this respect, by the way, he is quite
unlike Mrs Thatcher. But these are also qualities that carry their own
dangers. One of them is an irritation with the need to account to anybody
else, and a restlessness in the face of procedural constraints. Yet this is
what democracy requires. It would not be a sign of weakness, or an
abdication of personal responsibility, to have "absurd" allegations properly
inquired into. It would instead be a bold declaration of democratic
strength.

· Tony Wright is Labour MP for Cannock Chase and chairman of the public
administration select committee. His Very Short Introduction to British
Politics is published this month.