# Tony Blair's speech -- "History will forgive" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2003, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357 "2003-07-18T11:05:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/41 "2003-07-18T22:53:09Z")
> [@](#): > > He never specified “gross violations of warfare”. No, I did. Hussein was, indeed, guilty of crimes against international law in his invasion of Iran (and to a lesser extent during his retreat from Kuwait) and crimes against humanity in his attacks on his own citizens. However, we chose to not hold him accountable for those crimes. When Blair or Bush talk about the terrible things that Hussein has done, the majority of them (meaning the actions that harmed th most people) occurred either with the tacit support of the U.S. and the U.K. or were given a pass by the U.S. and the U.K. at the times they occurred. The crimes that Hussein is accused of committing in the last ten years are comparable to the crimes committed by the U.S.-sponsored Shah of Iran. To hold up old and ignored crimes and group them in with current activity as a pretense that he is actively engaging in the same type of crime is dishonest. If you really believe that he should be held accountable for the older crimes (despite our inactivity in preventing them or bringing him to justice when he committed them), then I should expect to see you posting frequently in protest of the Most Favored Nation status given to China–strongly supported by Bush, that has inflicted quite as much horror on its own citizens (to say nothing of the Tibetans and Vietnamese). I’m glad that Hussein is (apparently) gone, but it is too soon to seek forgiveness from history, given our current mess. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/42 "2003-07-18T22:53:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MC Master of Ceremonies \* > \*\*Tony Blai wouldn’t of said “fiber”, he would of said “fibre”. \*\* He wouldn’t have said “of said” either. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/43 "2003-07-18T22:58:46Z")
I gotta wonder about that. Was his speech “vetted” by the White House staff? Did they know in advance that he was going to drop that line about being maybe sorta kinda “mistaken”? Did Karl Rove pop a vien in his forehead when he heard? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/44 "2003-07-18T23:04:11Z")
What was the suggestion Blair reported that someone made to Bush about raising gasloine taxes to fund something? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/45 "2003-07-18T23:17:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*I gotta wonder about that. Was his speech “vetted” by the White House staff? \*\* Quote: “there’s a guy getting on with his life,…” I doubt it was vetted, otherwise he would have said “bloke,” instead of “guy,” so he’d sound like a loveable limey from central casting. “Super-callow-fragile-coalition, expyaladocious!” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/46 "2003-07-18T23:45:33Z")
Dont know about that, seems to me that Tony cut loose with his weapons-grade Parliamentary oratory. It wasn’t Disraeli or Churchill, maybe, but it sure wasn’t “bring 'em on”. Americans werent used to his flights of rhetoric, and he wasn’t used to not being interrupted. A love feast, or course, not too tough an audience to display his slobbering adoration of America, like a dewey eyed puppy offering up a soggy tennis ball, a display of mawkish sentimentality to gag a maggot. But I find it hard to believe the Bushistas were sanquine about Tony making even the _suggestion_ of “oopsy! Might have been wrong!” Unless they thought of it as a “trial balloon”. If it provoked any outrage, they could shrug and blame the limey. If it gets over, they might try hinting at it themselves, gently. ---
**Author:** ![musicguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@musicguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/musicguy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/47 "2003-07-18T23:57:37Z")
All I know is that when both Blair and Bush were answering questions together, it was embarrassing. Bush sounded like a fool next to Blair. Could he have been less prepared for those questions? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/48 "2003-07-19T00:08:53Z")
Sure. He could have been drunk and high on cocaine. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/49 "2003-07-19T00:08:54Z")
You kidding? Ever see one of those outakes of Tony Blair doing his thing in Parliament? They dont just ask questions, they torture you for a confession! Now I dont agree with him about much of anything lately, but you gotta hand it to him, he can stand there and extemporize in verbal combat situations. If GeeDubya had to face that, he’d curl up on the floor in the fetal postition and suck his thumb until he lapsed into catatonia. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/50 "2003-07-19T00:31:40Z")
> [@](#): > > If GeeDubya had to face that, he’d curl up on the floor in the fetal postition and suck his thumb until he lapsed into catatonia. Nah, I think the Hand of the Right firmly entrenched inside his body would squeeze him so tight (“George, SAY THIS! NO, THIS! AAAAAUGH! DEATH TO THE MAN!” :::squeeeeeeeze::: ) he’d sort of implode and slump to the floor in one gigantic mess of viscera, and there’d be this upright hand, very thick and bloody, pulsating and with some unidentifiable aura about it. Sort of a political version of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Kinda. If you squinted. ---
**Author:** ![musicguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@musicguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/musicguy)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/51 "2003-07-19T00:32:40Z")
**Eludicator** , was that a response to my post? If so, I think you misread what I said. I thought Blair looked brilliant next to Bush, who stuttered and stammered so much, I had no idea what he was trying to say. Bush could only try to remember catch phrases from his other speeches and repeat them ad nausium and he didn’t do a very good job at that. He didn’t sound believable and he didn’t sound honest. He sounded like he was trying quite unsuccessfully to cover his ass. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/52 "2003-07-19T00:41:02Z")
**ElvisL1ves wonders:** > [@](#): > > What the hell happened with the guy? I never used to think of him as an ideologue, willing to look for facts to support his unshakeable, unconsidered understanding of The Truth. Is he thinking that he doesn’t dare grasp the nettle and admit he might have been wrong (or, worse for him, fooled). Is he taking the only approach that he thinks has a chance to keep him in office, even depending as it does on the mere hope of having some evidence turn up later? Or maybe the ideologue isn’t Tony Blair… One question: If Tony Blair has been lying all this time, what is his motivation? We all know that Dick Cheney is evil, and Bush has friends in the oil industry, and yada yada yada, but why is Tony Blair, a common man with no connections to the oil industry or big business, willing to put his career and reputation on the line over Iraq? Or for that matter, Howard in Australia? I don’t see that he had a lot to gain from this war of imperialism. Can’t you at least consider the possibility that maybe all these people believed in the threat, and so did their intelligence agencies? For example, we have [these released documents today](http://www.msnbc.com/news/937524.asp?vts=071820031550), which state: > [@](#): > > The documents released Friday, nine pages of excerpts from the intelligence community’s 90-page National Intelligence Estimate in October, speak generally of the Iraqi threat. > “Although we assess that [then-Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them,” the document’s “key judgments” conclude. “Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM [U.N. weapons commission] inspectors departed — December 1998.” > “If left unchecked,” it says, Baghdad “probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.” That’s the U.S. national intelligence estimate, which the President and the intelligence committees are SUPPOSED to use to make their judgements. On chemical weapons, the document ccontinues: > [@](#): > > “Although we have little specific information on Iraq’s CW [chemical weapons] stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents — much of it added in the past year,” the report says. > … > Production of biological agents is not as advanced, the document concludes, but Iraq is “capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives.” > > “Chances are even that smallpox is part of Iraq’s offensive BW [biological weapons] program,” it says. Can you not at least admit that post-9/11, a President and Prime Minister might read that assessment and see a real threat? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/53 "2003-07-19T00:50:23Z")
They might read that assessment and see a threat. The question is did they see a _real_ threat. The Iraqi military machine, such a dire threat to the region, couldn’t have whupped Norway. The dreaded Scuds are spectres, the WMD’s are phantoms, and American credibility as a civilized nation governed by rational men is equally unsubstantial. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/54 "2003-07-19T00:53:04Z")
PS to **musicguy** …no, just a coincidence, we are pretty much in agreement as to the relative think-on-your-feet capacity of Bush v. Blair. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/55 "2003-07-19T01:13:52Z")
I thought he spoke in (US) Republican-ese language about a whole lot of lets-join-hands stuff. Tough on terrorism but without the Bush ‘Gonna git me a Possee’ crap while also being conciliatory towards Europe – you could take whatever you wanted out of the speech whether you were tin-foil GOP, Euro Social Democrat or anywhere in between. In other words, appealing to all sides like he would have in old fashioned election speech. And he even got Kyoto in there, in fact he covered a lot of ground. I thought the speech did the job it was designed to do reasonably well but I wouldn’t rave about it. Bush was just an embarrassing at the press conference. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > One question: If Tony Blair has been lying all this time, what is his motivation? We all know that Dick Cheney is evil, and Bush has friends in the oil industry, and yada yada yada, but why is Tony Blair, a common man with no connections to the oil industry or big business, willing to put his career and reputation on the line over Iraq? **Sam** – I think we can assume it was never the plan to put his career on the line to the extent it was, and will soon be again. In fact, I think Blair is in going to be in very grave danger over the next couple of months. As I’ve written many times, Blair did what he did in the UK national interest. He did what PM’s from Churchill to Thatcher and Socialist to barking mad have done – supporting US Foreign Policy _actions_ have been possibly _the_ central plank of UK policy for over 40 years with only Harold Wilson (in the late 60’s) telling the US where to go (over Vietnam). Australia is angling for the ‘best pal’ role in that less important region - esentially copying UK Foreign Policy. And once the deed is done, the UK mends any fences with those upset, as in the case now is France. Ultimately, we’ll all just move on. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/56 "2003-07-19T01:19:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* To hold up old and ignored crimes and group them in with current activity as a pretense that he is actively engaging in the same type of crime is dishonest. > > \*\* Well said. I wish I had thought of it. Our lawyers can straighten me out if I misstate this but I think it is well established that if you know about actions by another that might harm your interests and do nothing about them at the time you assumed to have ratified those actions. That appears to be the case here. Blair’s blather notwithstanding, I wrote at the time and will repeat, if you are in a war you have to act according to your intelligence information even though it is often wrong. That is one reason military leaders don’t commit all of their forces but hold back some in reserve for “contingencies.” However, _waging a preemptive war_ based only on intelligence is, in my opinion, a bad mistake. Colin Powell, in trying to explain away the uranium-Niger brouhaha has been spending a lot of time talking about the tentative and subjective nature of intelligence and it’s interpretation. I wish he and others had made those same points to the public in their sales pitch before our Iraq invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/57 "2003-07-19T01:23:07Z")
Re: the Kelley (sp unsure) death Guess James Bond still has his icense to kill … ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/58 "2003-07-19T01:30:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spanna \* > \*\* > > Mr Martin (USA + UK) > Two burglers (Saddam Hussein) > We think we may be at risk from Saddam (no proof, no sign of intent just our suspicions). > We act first to prevent harm that MAY happen in the future, despite protestations from most of the rest of the world. > Perhaps if Tony Martin had said that “History would look kindly on him for getting rid of such bad men” he would have got off > Anybody believe he would have … no nor me. > If anything Tony Martins case is more compelling than Blair/GWB’s but he is in prison (maybe we should prepare the cell next door) \*\* I had to read this two or three times to make sure it really said what I thought it did. To put my thoughts bluntly, _are you retarded_ ? Sorry if that sounds like a flame, but it isn’t, its an honest question. When, exactly, was the last time Saddam visited the United States, or Britain? When, exactly, was the last time he threatened either state beyond his forces attacking ours on _their own soil_ ? A closer analogy might be your neighbour, who once beat his wife, buying a gun, and your best friend’s aunt’s sister’s cousin’s pool boy saying he heard he was going to give the gun to somebody that didn’t like you… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/59 "2003-07-19T01:32:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*Re: the Kelley (sp unsure) death > > Guess James Bond still has his icense to kill … \*\* I’m pretty sure it said somewhere in _From Russia with Love_ (the book) that the license to kill included a “no killing British nationals” coda… but I wouldn’t put it past that pesky Felix Lighter 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357/60 "2003-07-19T01:39:46Z")
**elucidator** said: > [@](#): > > They might read that assessment and see a threat. The question is did they see a _real_ threat. By what process are they supposed to determine that? Divination? The national intelligence estimate is the document that is supposed to guide policymakers. The Iraq dossier has key conclusions that Iraq was seeking to build nuclear weapons, and would have one within the decade. The intelligence community in the U.S. estimated that Iraq could rapidly manufacture a number of biological weapons, and very likely had large quantities of deadly chemical weapons like Vx. That document IS the determination of whether there is a threat or not - it contains 90 pages of supporting evidence which has not been declassified. BTW, that document is not all supportive of the President’s assertions. They put some pretty big error bars around the ‘purchase of uranium from Africa’ angle, and the State Department added a note calling the claims ‘dubious’. The document also says there is no hard evidence that Saddam had or was planning to provide weapons to terrorists. But by and large, it does make a compelling case for Iraq as a real threat to the security of the world. There is a case for war in there - or rather, there is a case for _threatening_ war if Iraq didn’t change its ways. Iraq didn’t, so war resulted. What I hope any rational reader would conclude, however, was that this was no conspiracy to fake up a reason to go to war in order to benefit someone’s rich oil buddies. Were some claims over-stated? Possibly. We don’t know for sure, because the British have their own intelligence, and it emphases different things. And intelligence is not a precise science. All estimates are given with a confidence interval. I note that the reporters of the story above seem to misunderstand what that means - when a report says, “we have low confidence in this conclusion”, they seemed to think that means that someone believes the conclusion is wrong. In fact, ‘low confidence’ simply means that the accuracy of the judgement us subject to more unknowns. My conclusions so far: Bush did not lie. Tony Blair did not lie. Both were absolutely convinced that they were doing the right thing for their countries. There were no ulterior motives - this was not done to gain re-election, or to help out friends. Both men believe they are acting in the interests of their countries. They believe this fervently. They should be given the benefit of the doubt. By shouting “Liar!”, and trying to make hay out of one sentence ina speech made long after the authorization for war was already given overwhelmingly by congress (and which was not mentioned again in subsequent arguments), and calling for impeachment, the Democrats are damaging themselves. They are going to wind up looking like they are playing politics with national security, and as being fundamentally unserious. Especially after the Bush administration finishes making their case. I warned about overreaching in calling out Bush a couple of months ago - before you start levelling very serious charges, you’d better be sure they are going to stick. My feeling is that the Bush administration is going to wind up releasing a flurry of information at some point that is going to cut the Democrats off at the knees. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-blairs-speech-history-will-forgive/189357.md?page=4)