Even though support for the war continues to fall to new lows it often appears that the British are well ahead us in publicizing the specifics of what went wrong. For example, while it only verified what other witnesses had already stated, it took the English to publicize some of the confirmatory evidence that George Bush had planned to go to war against Iraq during the time when he was claiming to be seeking a diplomatic settlement in public. The Downing Street Memos also demonstrated the intent to manipulate information to promote the war.
There have also been many accounts of Bush’s lack of a post-war plan to stabilize the country in the United States, but this is currently receiving more attention in Great Britain. At one point there was the belief that Tony Blair’s partnership with George Bush would have provided a voice of sanity, but we see another example of Blair’s failure to keep Bush under control:
Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country.
In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.
He also agreed to commit troops to the conflict even though President George Bush had personally said Britain could help ‘some other way’.
The disclosures, in a two-part Channel 4 documentary about Blair’s decade in Downing Street, will raise questions about Blair’s public assurances at the time of the war in 2003 that he was satisfied with the post-war planning. In one of the most significant interviews in the programme, Peter Mandelson says that the Prime Minister knew the preparations were inadequate but said he was powerless to do more…
Opponents of the war, who have long claimed that the Pentagon planned a short, sharp offensive to overthrow Saddam Hussein with little thought of the consequences, claimed last night that the programme vindicated their criticisms. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, told The Observer: ‘These frank admissions that the Prime Minister was aware of the inadequacies of the preparations for post-conflict Iraq are a devastating indictment.’
