The Spectator

The shame of Iraq

Instead of asking why we fought in Iraq, we should ask why we lost

‘If it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region’

— Note from Tony Blair to George W. Bush, 2 June 2003.

 

Instead of asking why we fought the war, we should ask why we lost

The extraordinary length of time that we have had to wait for Sir John Chilcot’s report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq has not made the end result any more satisfying. For some, nothing less than the indictment of Tony Blair on war crime charges would have sufficed. As for Blair himself, and many of those who surrounded him when the decision was made to remove Saddam Hussein from power, they will go on believing until their dying day that not only was the war just, but there was nothing much wrong with the way in which it was sold to the public and to Parliament.

This magazine supported the Iraq invasion and invited sceptics to explain why the world would be a better place were Saddam allowed to continue in power. What we didn’t know then was the calamitous lack of a plan for what would follow. These were difficulties that, as the Chilcot report says, could have been foreseen. We learn that Sir Jeremy Greenstock, when ambassador to Baghdad, concluded that preparations ‘were abject: wrong analysis, wrong people.’ So toppling Saddam created a vacuum which was filled by sectarian bloodshed and (eventually) the Islamic state. There is no doubt that Blair misled us about the case for war. He felt that he had to. He was desperate to have the United Nations endorse George W. Bush’s invasion and the lawyer in him tried to construct an argument about weapons of mass destruction. Foolishly, he pledged support to Bush too early on — leaving him no leverage.

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