The knives are out for the British Prime Minister Tony Blair just two days before a general election and it’s all because of Iraq. Labeled “a liar” by the leader of the Conservatives Michael Howard and accused of “misleading the British people” by Charles Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats, who says the war is the prime minister’s “Suez”, never before has the race to the polls been as personal.
The leaking of the attorney general’s advice on the war’s legality — which prompted Blair to finally shrug his shoulders and publish — couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Blair called it a “damp squib” but when viewed as a piece of the puzzle along with the infamous “dodgy dossiers”, and the British trumpeting of faked documents over Iraq’s purported purchase of yellow cake from Niger, it was devastating.
In short, on March 7, 2003, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith issued a 13-page opinion, which was far from being unequivocal on the legality of the invasion. Not only did it stress the need for a second UN resolution, it firmly indicated that “regime change” is not a valid legal reason for going to war.
Further, it warned the war could be legally challenged and concluded that it was up to the UN and not individual states to deduce Iraq’s noncompliance with Resolution 1441.
Then just ten days later on March 17 — when chances of getting a second resolution had receded — Lord Goldsmith appears to have changed his mind giving the government an unequivocal green light.
A status report issued by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix during those crucial ten days made it clear no weapons had been found and that Iraq was cooperating.
So what happened to prompt a dramatic volte-face on the part of the government’s top lawyer?
With British troops already in theater, then Chief of Defense Staff Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, demanded “black and white” legal cover, as he feared prosecution for war crimes before the International Criminal Court. Lord Goldsmith was thus placed in a corner and forced to take a stand.
It is generally believed that Lord Goldsmith had come under pressure from Blair’s own friend and lawyer to toe the party line. However, a report in last Sunday’s Observer reveals Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had earlier packed the attorney general off to the US to meet with “five powerful lawyers in the Bush administration”.
Two of those legal minds are staunch pro-war neocons — John Ashcroft, former US Attorney General and Judge Alberto Gonzales, the current attorney general embroiled in the Abu Ghraib torture controversy. They were later to describe Lord Goldsmith’s intransigence as troublesome.
Adding yet more fuel to the flames was an article in Sunday’s Independent titled “Revealed: Documents Show Blair’s Secret Plans for War”.
The expose reveals that: “Blair had resolved to send British troops into action alongside US forces eight months before the Iraq war began, despite a clear warning from the Foreign Office that the conflict could be illegal.”
This assumption was based on a leaked Minute of a Meeting, which confirmed that in July 2002 after Blair’s visit to Bush’s Crawford Ranch, the prime minister “summoned his closest aides for a council of war”. This, the paper opines, is evidence that the intelligence and the facts were fixed around the policy.
These damning leaks have placed British voters in a quandary. Polls invariably show that most do not trust their prime minister to tell the truth and there is palpable anger in the constituencies. Yet, Michael Howard is even more of a neocon sycophant than Blair.
Howard said that he would have taken the decision to go to war on the basis of getting rid of Saddam but adds that he would have told the British people the truth. This means that Howard would have been prepared to openly cast aside both international law and the UN constitution in favor of backing up the Bush administration.
Forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee advises readers to put a peg on their noses and vote Labour. Given that the Conservative leader has come across as xenophobic with his stringent asylum policies, makes little secret of his disdain for the EU, and has stooped to below-the-belt electioneering tactics, she is surely right.
However, how would a Blair win paint the British public in foreign eyes? Wouldn’t his renewed incumbency signal that Britons had proffered a mandate for war in the same way the Americans did when they voted for Bush?
In reality, this would not be the case. At one time more than 80 percent of Britons were anti-war but in this election, they are being given a Hobson’s choice: Pro-war candidate Blair and an even more enthusiastic pro-war candidate Howard.
British elections are still perceived as a two-horse race, although polls indicate that many traditional Labour supporters are out to punish Blair by either defecting to the Lib-Dems or abstaining from the electoral process. Blair is concerned and warns of a potential Conservative threat “via the back door”.
Despite polls indicating a Labour win, albeit with a greatly reduced majority, smaller parties and disgruntled individuals are determinedly seeking to unseat Blair and his pro-war colleagues.
Reg Keys, the father of a military policemen killed in Iraq, is so incensed over his son’s demise that he is standing against Blair’s candidacy in the prime minister’s own constituency of Sedgefield.
Former Labour MP George Galloway, ousted from the party due to his colorful language buttressing his vehement opposition to the war, has set up his own — Respect. A charismatic figure, Galloway is battling against pro-war Labour MP Oona King in a largely Muslim area of East London, while another of his party’s leading lights journalist Yvonne Ridley is seeking the Muslim vote in Leicester South.
Going head to head with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn is Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, sacked for speaking out against the torture of Muslims.
But Blair may have more to worry about than simply being evicted from No. 10. Encouraged by Lord Goldsmith’s March 7 advice, anti-war groups have banded together to present a case before the International Criminal Court on Thursday accusing the government of war crimes.
Adm. Boyce, who led British troops into Iraq, said if he were charged then Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith would be “brought into the frame as well”.
Love him or hate him, Blair gets full marks for stickability. His face crisscrossed with worry lines, he soldiers on hoping for a hallowed place in history. Is he a Churchill or is he an Eden? On Thursday, it’s the voters who’ll decide.
