Why War Is The Right Choice by Tony Blair

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(excerpt)
The following is the text of a speech delivered by Prime Minister Tony Blair at Labour's local government, women's and youth conferences, SECC, Glasgow, on Saturday, February 15, 2003. (end excerpt)

I won't butcher Mr Blair's speech by cutting and pasting excerpts.

In his speech, in addition to presenting his own thoughts and some facts/statistics, he quotes a letter from a member of a family of an Iraqi exile, and includes a quote from Dr Safa Hashim.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...le.asp?ID=6181

[brad]

does he mention babies being thrown out of incubators? (remember that propaganda thing which was totally false)

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If you'd read it you'd know whether he mentions it or not.

C'mon brad, why do you so often try to be obtuse?

[brad]

just mentioning a well known propaganda stunt right before gulf war.

if you cant see the parallel dont blame me. heh

[adios]

Thanks for the link, very well done by Blair. It's fairly obvious to me that people who oppose imposing a deadline (which he has had plenty of time to meet) on Iraq disarmerment with military action as the consequence for not meeting the deadline simply don't feel that Saddam is a an immnenent nor serious threat. One poster stated that you can't prove a negative i.e. if Saddam doesn't have WMD's he can't very well remove them. This is a belief I don't even think Blix has. Basically all of the "players" are in agreement that Saddam has to be disarmed just not how.

BTW Blix's report on Friday IMO was a disgrace. I saw an interview with Democratic House Representative Alcee Hastings by Geraldo last nigtht. Hastings stated that there was no way that 200 inspectors or even 600 inspectors in an area the size of California are going to find WMD's that Hussein wants to hide. I certainly wouldn't call Congressman Hastings politically aligned with Bush either. It clued me in that the Congressional Democrats know what the score is regarding Saddam and WMD's. How many Congressional leaders were out there protesting this weekend against using military force to disarm Hussein? There must have been a few.

[Zeno]

Thanks for posting the speech. It is well done and honest in tone. Though this may illict all the more ridicule. As to the ultimate reasons for the necessity of war, He makes his points clear and gives plain, understandable reasons. A commendable speech.

CSPAN usually airs the questions to the prime minister and I listen sometimes. Mr. Blair is articulate and can field questions well. Something Mr. Bush would never be able to do well, in this respect he follows his father.

-Zeno

[Clarkmeister]

"....simply don't feel that Saddam is a an immnenent nor serious threat"

This certainly sums up a large portion of my view on the subject.

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I saw the parallel, but it's an out-of-place comment given that you hadn't read the text of Blair's speech when you made it.

If Blair's speech contains something worth picking on, then go ahead if you like. But to cynically suggest that his speech contains propaganda lies before you even read it is unworthy of a serious discussion.

[nicky g]

This bit from Blair's statement is an outrageous piece of intellectual dishonesty and a study in absurdity (my phrase of the week [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] ):

"A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal."

Saddam was vice-president from early 70s (1969 I think, in fact?), and noone disputes that he was running the country from the moment he came into office. The President, Bakr, had no real power and was a mere figurehead that Saddam finally dispensed with in 1979 (prior to then his office was referred to as "the tomb of the well-known soldier", so decrepit and inactive he was). All major policy decisions in the 70s were taken by Saddam. So Blair is in fact giving Saddam credit for Iraq's economic success here.

"A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five - 70 percent of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition. Where 60 percent of the people depend on Food Aid. Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water."

I am astounded that Blair can get away with this. This has been the case since the sanctions were imposed. It is outrageous of Blair to pretend that Saddam took over a previously prosperous country and deliberately starved the populace. All the figures Blair lists are direct consequences of the sanctions. Yes if Saddam had stood down (and let's face it, nothing short of that would have brought them to an end), they probably would have been lifted and eveyone would have been far better off. But that clearly was not going to happen, , and the West decided to let 1000s of people die anyway. You can argue all you like about Saddam spending all the money on palaces in WMDs but how exactly could he "spend" the medicines that have been prevented from treating the easily preventable diseases that Blair is so concerned about?
People like Blair rely on the public's ignorance for blatantly dishonest statements like this. Moreover, Saddam may have been the first person to use gas "against his own people" (I doubt the Kurds would describe themselves as such, and don't particularly appreciate the West's support for their repression by Turkey and co, but anyway), but Britain was the first nation to gas the Kurds and has very little to be proud of. I don't see why Saddam doing it is worse than the RAF doing it. The 20th century in IRaq consisted of endless US, British, Soviet and French (manly the first two, by a long shot) meddling, plotting and killing that led directly to the kind of situation there is now and it's a damn shame the 21st is shaping up for more of the same. Blair is a liar and a phoney and we'll be well rid of him if this adventure is his downfall.

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It is untrue to assert that Saddam could not have spent the money on medicines. He damn well could have but didn't because he WANTED those children to die so he could point to the sanctions and say: "See what your sanctions are doing?" Anything he wanted to buy which were prohibited by sanctions he could have had smuggled in--just as he did with his nuke program materiels--and just as he secretly redirected revenues from the oil-for-food program to his military. To believe otherwise is naive IMO.

The sooner we get rid of Saddam the more the Iraqi people will thank us. Wait and see.