Prime Minister’s meeting, 23 July 2002
The Sunday Times has published a memo describing a meeting between Tony Blair, his advisors, and senior members of the British Cabinet, that took place on July 23, 2002. You can read the Sunday Times’ own analysis if you wish, but the memorandum speaks eloquently and for itself. By mid-2002, the US had made a decision to invade Iraq. Blair’s government decided to support the US action. All discussions about WMD’s and the threat to Iraq’s neighbors were manufactured pretexts — in reality, according to Jack Straw (British Foreign Secretary),
[…] the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
At the time of the invasion, I remember that I was 95% sure that the US and UK governenments had indeed manufactured pretexts for use of force; their case had many obvious holes. It still surprises me that so many Americans and Britons in 2002-2003 had trusted their government uncritically. For people born in less democratic places, it is second nature to run any government pronouncement through a series of filters, separating the rare germs of truth from lies and propaganda. It looks like citizens of Republican America and Laborist UK also need to develop this skill.