MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Blair Contrast to Thatcher's Falklands Campaign.
As the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, faces tough questioning over allegations that he misled the country to go to war with Iraq, comparisons are being made with how Baroness Thatcher conducted the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina. The former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, has accused the Prime Minister of building his case for war on deceit, then by-passing the War Cabinet and running the conflict like a personal campaign.
Critics contrasted Mr Blair's approach with that of Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands Campaign when the War Cabinet played a full role and there were numerous House of Commons debates.
Clare Short claims that Mr Blair's War Cabinet met only briefly and a Cabinet Sub-Committee which should have dealt with the war did not meet at all after hostilities began. She said the normal government systems to make big decisions like this broke down and these decisions were made personally by Mr Blair in his Downing Street Office in consultation with Foreign Policy Adviser and over the telephone with President Bush. . She accused him of lying over wanting a second United Nations Resolution, in saying France would veto such a resolution, and by claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which were an immediate threat to the United Kingdom within 45 minutes.
Mr Blair faces searching questions over his conduct both inside and outside Parliament, focusing on what intelligence reports he had.
Query from Falklands and Gulf Commander Demands that the Prime Minister should resign if he was guilty of misleading the armed forces and the country have been joined by a highly-regarded Commander, General Sir Peter de La Billiere, who had intimate knowledge of both the Falklands War when he was Director of Britain's Special Forces, the SAS, and the First Gulf War, when he commanded the British Forces. He says that fears are growing that the war was one of political expedience, not national defence. He agrees the war was justified on humanitarian grounds by deposing an evil, genocidal dictator, Saddam Hussein, and removing the regional threat of his potential to make weapons of mass destruction.
But unless Mr Blair can show conclusively that Iraq really did possess weapons of mass destruction, he will have misled the army and the country and should consider his personal position. General de la Billiere said well-motivated soldiers are more inclined to accept the possibility of death on the battlefield when they believe the future of their country is at stake. Relatives of those who died in Iraq may justifiably and bitterly question whether those lives have been sacrificed on a false justification.
Harold Briley,(MP)London
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