War Glance
Toany Blair insisted today that Britain had to give up the "wretched policy of apology" for the allies' action in Iraq. But he offered the Chilcot inquiry his regrets for the loss of life in Iraq. At his appearance before the inquiry last year he was heavily criticised for not answering a question about whether he regretted the invasion.
At the end of his evidence this afternoon he said it had never been his meaning. "Of course I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life," he said. As he extended his regrets to British and allied troops and Iraqis, there were murmurs of "too late" from the public seating behind him.
Iraq war inquiry Tony Blair 'regrets' Iraq deaths but says Britain must stop apologising for invasion
Tony Blair had way out of Iraq invasion, Chilcot inquiry told
Tony Blair was offered a way out of attacking Iraq at a secret meeting with his foreign secretary Jack Straw eight days before the invasion, according to documents lodged with the Chilcot inquiry, which tomorrow will question the former prime minister for a second time.
An anonymous official told the inquiry: "I recall a meeting with the prime minister where the foreign secretary [Straw] made the argument ... for the UK military not being involved.
At last, the damning evidence that should bury Blair for his lies over Iraq
Many newspapers have so far either ignored or underplayed it, and the BBC has hitherto showed limited interest. And yet the new documents appear to establish more clearly than ever before that Tony Blair misled Parliament and the public about the legality of the war.
In secret evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, declassified on Monday, Lord Goldsmith stated that Mr Blair based his case for invasion on grounds that ‘did not have any application in international law’. Coming from the man who was the Government’s senior law officer, this is an extremely serious charge.
In ’91, Hussein Sought Soviet Help to Head Off U.S. War
As the American-led ground offensive in the first war with Iraq got under way on Feb. 24, 1991, Saddam Hussein directed his frustration at an unlikely target: the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Mr. Hussein had dispatched his foreign minister to Moscow in an 11th-hour bid to head off a ground war.
After prodding by Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Hussein had offered to withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 21 days. But the United States appeared to be moving ahead with its land campaign.
Whitehall chief blocks release of Blair's notes to Bush on Iraq
Britain's top civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, is preventing the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion from publishing notes sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush - evidence described by the inquiry as of "central importance" in establishing the circumstances that led to war.
In a letter dated 6 January, his third to O'Donnell in less than a month, Chilcot wrote: "The question when and how the prime minister made commitments to the US about the UK's involvement in military action in Iraq and subsequent decisions on the UK's continuing involvement, is central to its considerations".
Tony Blair 'misled Parliament over legality of Iraq war'
Tony Blair misled Parliament over advice he was given over the legality of a war against Iraq, a statement from Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, suggests.
In written evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the war, Lord Goldsmith said statements made by the ex-prime minister in the months before the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein were incompatible with the guidance he had given.
How the US let al-Qaida get its hands on an Iraqi weapons factory
Sure enough, 15km to the south lies a big, big secret. The secret dates back to 1977, when the then-president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ordered the construction of a vast munitions plant outside the town. Built by the Yugoslavs, the factory was originally to be named after Bakr himself, until Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979. In a fit of patriotic zeal, the fledgling dictator named it after the Iraqi general Qa'qaa ibn Umar, who in the seventh century inflicted a most glorious massacre on the Persian army in the second battle of Qasidiya: Al Qa'qaa.
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