QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Andrew Sullivan
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"No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end ... But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy ... I have searched my conscience, not in the spirit of obstinacy, but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. And my answer would be that the evidence of Saddam's WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time.
But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme. On any
basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and
significant capability. The only reason he ever let the
inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and
British troops on his doorstep ... Had we backed down in
respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we
needed to take on WMD, never have got progress on
Libya ... and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq,
with every malign intent and capability still in place and
every dictator with the same intent everywhere
immeasurably emboldened. For any mistakes made, as the
report finds, in good faith, I of course take full
responsibility. But I cannot honestly say I believe
getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all."<font color=black> - Tony Blair, yesterday.
It's a classy, honest, intelligent and sincere rebuke to the anti-war arguments. If only the president had the character and strength to say something as candid. |
