The bulletproof case against Blair
Mehdi Hasan
In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, our prime minister insisted that he didn’t want war – yet he rushed headlong into it anyway, based on a hunch. Here, experts he ignored at the time judge him in a way the Chilcot inquiry may fail to do.
On 25 February 2003, less than a month before the invasion of Iraq, and in one of his most important speeches as prime minister, Tony Blair stood up before the House of Commons to deliver a statement on Saddam Hussein and the crisis in the Middle East.
“I detest his regime," he said, in a passionate address to sceptical MPs on both sides of the house. "But even now, he can save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully." He added, solemnly: "I do not want war."
It is perhaps on this single Commons statement that the entire case against Blair rests. Is it true that he did "not want war"? Could Saddam have saved his regime? As the Conservative former prime minister John Major - who supported the war - remarked in a BBC radio interview in January: "The suspicion arises that this was more about regime change than it was about weapons of mass destruction."
“Regime change" is a euphemism for the unilateral and often violent overthrow of a foreign government. Regime change is illegal under international law - and has become, in recent days and weeks, the chief focus of the Iraq inquiry led by the former Whitehall mandarin John Chilcot.