Tony Blair at Chilcot: pants on fire 2

Video: a telling moment when Blair admits 'inconsistency'

This time it's personal.

Watching live feed of Tony Blair at Chilcot. Anyone else noticed how, when he's on the spot he glottal stops for England (presumably seeking orfenticity) but adopts posh when he's seeking high status? (One Tweeter noted 'gaing' instead of 'going', f'rinstance). Tweeters inside the inquiry have observed the shaking hand as he reaches for his notes. The slipperiness is on show for all to see.

Blair dismisses his own contradictions with sophistry. Hence, Sir Rodders Lyne's question quoting Blair's 'unreasonable veto' comment is brushed off as not counting because he was only making 'a political point'. So the appearance that they were going to bulldoze through any inconvenient UN vetos regardless is only gloss. So says Tone.

EDIT: Channel 4 News video of Blair's 'political point' and his admission of 'inconsistency' here.

"I was making basically a political point - however I accept entirely that there was an inconsistency between what he [Peter Goldsmith] was saying and what I was saying..."

His constant reference to 9/11 remains unchallenged. Yet the events of September 11th are and always were an irrelevance.

Did you know that our attorney general is supposed to take instructions from the US to determine the legality of UK policy? No? Neither did I. Neither did the UK electorate. Blair regarded Goldsmith's advice as 'provisional' (Guardian).

Blair admits that Saddam might have obeyed the resolution — it looks like there was a race against time and they had to pre-empt Saddam's brinkmanship by not waiting for the second resolution as SH might well have complied and thereby taken the boys' toys away.

The Guardian blog points out:

Freedman says this is not necessarily the case. In March, Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, said that Iraq was allowing people to be interviewed. There was "progressively more cooperation", Freedman says.

Meanwhile, Sky and BBC News allow Andy Coulson's resignation to knock Blair off the front page.

I'll be updating this throughout. It beats chucking something heavy at the telly.

UPDATE 12.18: One pic of the (tiny) demo shows a banner reading, "Saddam was ready to go into exile". Of course, this would have meant no bangy war-games for the lads.

UPDATE 12.22: Channel 4 News #iraqinquiryblog tweets:

Blair: Iraq started to give out a little bit more in the last few weeks but it was nothing like full, immediate & unconditional cooperation.

UPDATE 12.30: Chilcot takes a break. Steve M Facebooks me: Tony has been getting in some practice.

UPDATE 12.45: IraqInquiryBlog Iraq:
Prashar: Why didn't enough post-conflict planning take place? Blair: Planning DID take place. Should we have focused on different things?

Shocking. Prashar quotes Blair saying that was the responsibility of the Americans. Blair just denied he was going to leave it to the Americans. Words mean whatever he wants them to mean. Psychoboy!

UPDATE 13.00: IraqInquiryBlog:

Blair: Gordon & I honoured our commitment with resources required. Money really wasn't the problem. If people had problems I wanted to know

Indeed, money was hardly a problem when Blair's favourite JP Morgan (Blair 'earned' millions in fees from them) won pole position co-ordinating the pillage of Iraq.

UPDATE: Craig Murray writes:

The Chilcot Inquiry was summed up for me ten minutes ago, when Tony Blair quoted an extraordinary passage - I believe from George Bush, but didn't catch his attribution. The quote said that WMD were not things that had a physical existence, but rather existed in the minds of scientists who could create them, other than nuclear weapons, at very short notice. This absurd expedition into metaphysical justification was greeted by Sir Roderic Lyne's much vaunted forensic brain. MORE

HARPY MARX made the protest at Chilcot today and posts pix here.

THE CASE AGAINST BLAIR: 15 charges that have yet to be answered in The Independent.

Tony Blair dug his own hole in the Chilcot inquiry — Guardian

Blair at Chilcot this Friday: pants on fire

Tony Blair returns to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war this Friday following certain, ahem, 'inconsistencies' in his earlier testimony, contradicted by former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, and former head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett. Ooh, there's embarrassing. I wonder who's been economical with the actualité.

John Wight has written a scorching account at Socialist Unity which everyone should read for background to Blair's appearance.

Since [summer 2009] a veritable parade of witnesses have appeared, the vast majority assorted ex-government flunkies, civil servants and bureaucrats, along with the usual suspects whose names and reputations will forever be associated with Iraq. How could it be otherwise given that it was one of the most egregious and overt imperialist military adventures ever undertaken by any western country, one that has impacted on society at home in the shape of increased racial, ethnic and religious tensions, attacks on civil liberties and an increasingly corrupt body politic. ...

But it is not just Iraq that Tony Blair will be remembered for. He will also go down as the most right wing, anti trade union and anti working class Labour leader in the history of the Labour Party. Indeed, the amputation of the Labour Party’s founding ethos was performed by Blair with the skill and precision of a surgeon. Where former Labour leader Neil ‘Lord’ Kinnock took tentative steps in a rightward direction, Blair sprinted headlong to jump on the bus marked Thatcherism when it came to his embrace of the free market and the City. Piecemeal reforms were parcelled out to the poor and low paid during the boom years - years in which the richest layer of society saw their wealth go up exponentially while wages for the majority went down in real terms, offset by the easy availability of personal credit. ...

Meritocracy replaced solidarity as the core value of Labour, along with the importation of that old American chestnut of social mobility to justify crippling inequality. His adherence to the Clintonite rightward shift doctrine of social democracy, known as triangulation, turned Britain into a free market paradise for billionaires, corporate executives and financial institutions. Blair’s genius was in presentation, utilising his evident talents as a PR man to sell the process as progressive politics.

But an example of how Blair was given an easy ride last time around was revealed last February by David Hencke in Tribune, where he wrote that, '... Tony Blair was let off the hook during his session because vital documents given to the Iraq inquiry are not being made public'.

Let's hope Blair gets the warm welcome he deserves when he turns up at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre at Westminster, London SW1P 3EE on Friday, 8am-2pm.

UPDATE: Tuesday afternoon, Sir John Chilcot announces that the government has blocked the release of a note from Tony Blair to George W Bush, evidence crucial to the examination of a narrow but significant area in the build-up to the allied invasion of Iraq. It must be pretty explosive for the Tories to protect the former Labour prime minister. After all, a former PM dragged into the Hague probably wouldn't look good for anyone.

UPDATE 2: The Daily Mail — 'But it is Mr Blair, of course, who emerges in even darker colours, because he was the man who railroaded this country into war — invoking weapons of mass destruction which did not exist (and which he should have known did not exist) and, unless Lord Goldsmith’s testimony is to be dismissed by him as mendacious, misleading Parliament and the public. ... This time, with Lord Goldsmith’s evidence in front of them, they have the material with which to unseat even a customer as slippery and evasive as Tony Blair. ... when a former Attorney General accuses a former Prime Minister of misleading Parliament over so vital a matter, we have entered an important new phase. Sooner or later the seriousness of what Lord Goldsmith has said will sink in.'

Blair War Crimes Foundation: aims to Bring Tony Blair to trial.

Je Ne Regrette Rien: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry, Pt Deux

Afternoon session at Chilcot.

So it all went wrong when those pesky Iran and Al Qaeda outsiders got involved. Even though there was a 911 issue. But Al Qaeda? And the criminality! Who'd have guessed the blighters would have fought back? Blow me down, is that what happens when a country's infrastructure is allowed to collapse?

"The purpose of the people we were fighting was to wreck the reconstruction. Deliberately!" shock horror. "Nobody, but NOBODY, thought that Iran would end up supporting Al Qaeda because they both wanted to destabilise Iraq."

Blair's ingenue schtick continues to appall. It's like when he said he hadn't understood that the 45 minute mobilisation only applied to battlefield armaments and not long-range weapons, and simpered, "I wasn't watching closely". Even though the whole country was being whipped up into a pro-war mood by the threat of imminent attacks at the time?

You would have thought that would have been a good case for negligence and manslaughter at least. Chilcot broke for a tea-break with the blasé, "It might have been an expensive lesson, but one very necessary to learn." Blimey. I could have told you all that at the time. In fact I do believe many of us did.

The voice is huskier this afternoon. Repetition of BS will do that. Blair keeps insisting that "It's pretty clear" that the "spirit" of UN Resolution 1441 gave them the right to go to war. Au contraire, as the Dutch found the other week, 1441 pertains only to disarming, demanded proportionality, and never included the key phrase, "by all means necessary" allowing military force.

The afternoon session focuses on the legality of war and yet the only lawyer present is Blair. That's one reason the panel doesn't challenge him on whether UN resolution 1441 was about removing Saddam, which is what he's slipping in, or the actual subject which was disarmament.

But it doesn't matter what Blair believed in his head, or the "spirit" of lawyerly document, it's about the letter of the law and whether the government contravened or followed it.

There are still so many more issues. However much they bang on about Saddam's atrocities — torture chambers, killing his own people and the like — no-one raises the fact that most of them were committed while he was our boy. Who supplied the chemicals and arms? That's right, we still have the receipts. The papers exchanged between Bush and Blair at Crawford have still not been released despite promises that they would be. Blair had to concede he's "used the wrong words" to Parliament when he said preparations for war weren't yet in place. They were.

There were a few sparks from the panel. One member asked if with such a cavalier attitude to planning wasn't this a heavy price to pay? But Blair insists that Iraqis today have never had it so good, especially since 2002, although one of his questioners said that from Iraqis he's spoken to, that's doubtful. Chilcot concluded with asking what he's learnt. Blair claims if they hadn't got him then they would have had to have dealt with him when he was stronger. If democracy takes hold then we'll look back with pride.
The one audible expression of disgust from the audience (and on exit in the room, boos and a cry of "murderer" and "liar") came when Blair insisted je ne regrette rien despite it being one big FAIL. He says he'd do it all again and I reckon he'd do it all over you.

UPDATE: Protester tried to perform a citizen's arrest of Blair as he left the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London this evening. More here. Arrest Blair. Canadian lawyers give thumbs up to Arrest Blair campaign.

What was it all about? Guardian journalists find fiasco and incompetence.

Harpymarx was at the demo in the freezing rain and has some great pix.

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry, Part 1.

"The voices in my head told me to do it"

Thanks to The Lavatory Reader for the Blair pic.

UPDATE: 1st Feb 2010 Iraq inquiry may recall Tony Blair over conflicting evidence

Je Ne Regrette Rien: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry, Pt Deux

Afternoon session at Chilcot.

So it all went wrong when those pesky Iran and Al Qaeda outsiders got involved. Even though there was a 911 issue. But Al Qaeda? And the criminality! Who'd have guessed the blighters would have fought back? Blow me down, is that what happens when a country's infrastructure is allowed to collapse?

"The purpose of the people we were fighting was to wreck the reconstruction. Deliberately!" shock horror. "Nobody, but NOBODY, thought that Iran would end up supporting Al Qaeda because they both wanted to destabilise Iraq."

Blair's ingenue schtick continues to appall. It's like when he said he hadn't understood that the 45 minute mobilisation only applied to battlefield armaments and not long-range weapons, and simpered, "I wasn't watching closely". Even though the whole country was being whipped up into a pro-war mood by the threat of imminent attacks at the time?

You would have thought that would have been a good case for negligence and manslaughter at least. Chilcot broke for a tea-break with the blasé, "It might have been an expensive lesson, but one very necessary to learn." Blimey. I could have told you all that at the time. In fact I do believe many of us did.

The voice is huskier this afternoon. Repetition of BS will do that. Blair keeps insisting that "It's pretty clear" that the "spirit" of UN Resolution 1441 gave them the right to go to war. Au contraire, as the Dutch found the other week, 1441 pertains only to disarming, demanded proportionality, and never included the key phrase, "by all means necessary" allowing military force.

The afternoon session focuses on the legality of war and yet the only lawyer present is Blair. That's one reason the panel doesn't challenge him on whether UN resolution 1441 was about removing Saddam, which is what he's slipping in, or the actual subject which was disarmament.

But it doesn't matter what Blair believed in his head, or the "spirit" of lawyerly document, it's about the letter of the law and whether the government contravened or followed it.

There are still so many more issues. However much they bang on about Saddam's atrocities — torture chambers, killing his own people and the like — no-one raises the fact that most of them were committed while he was our boy. Who supplied the chemicals and arms? That's right, we still have the receipts. The papers exchanged between Bush and Blair at Crawford have still not been released despite promises that they would be. Blair had to concede he's "used the wrong words" to Parliament when he said preparations for war weren't yet in place. They were.

There were a few sparks from the panel. One member asked if with such a cavalier attitude to planning wasn't this a heavy price to pay? But Blair insists that Iraqis today have never had it so good, especially since 2002, although one of his questioners said that from Iraqis he's spoken to, that's doubtful. Chilcot concluded with asking what he's learnt. Blair claims if they hadn't got him then they would have had to have dealt with him when he was stronger. If democracy takes hold then we'll look back with pride.
The one audible expression of disgust from the audience (and on exit in the room, boos and a cry of "murderer" and "liar") came when Blair insisted je ne regrette rien despite it being one big FAIL. He says he'd do it all again and I reckon he'd do it all over you.

UPDATE: Protester tried to perform a citizen's arrest of Blair as he left the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London this evening. More here. Arrest Blair. Canadian lawyers give thumbs up to Arrest Blair campaign.

What was it all about? Guardian journalists find fiasco and incompetence.

Harpymarx was at the demo in the freezing rain and has some great pix.

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry, Part 1.

"The voices in my head told me to do it"

Thanks to The Lavatory Reader for the Blair pic.

UPDATE: 1st Feb 2010 Iraq inquiry may recall Tony Blair over conflicting evidence

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry Pt I

Lunchtime. A slippery and unapologetic Tony Blair defended his right to smite at the Iraq Inquiry this morning with his well-rehearsed Minority Report line: we knew Saddam was a bad man and would have done bad things. So you can now be done for pre-crime and Blair is the man to decide.

"It was all about risk" and not an actual threat, he smarmed. "I made the decision based on RISK of renewed WMDs." You may do well in a poker game, Tony, but as a Prime Minister your JUDGEMENT (a word he kept repeating ad nauseam) sucked. He couldn't even extract anything from the Americans in exchange for services rendered (not including whatever it is that Blair may have gained personally). Lyne asked why he couldn't get Bush to give him a reach-around and offer anything on the Middle East and Israel. Oh, that's because Bush didn't think Israel was a fundamental issue.

The biggest stunna of the morning was his insistence on linking 911 with Iraq. Even Fox News no longer returns to this bowl of sick. But Blair kept pressing this as if it was possessed of magic properties and, because there is no lawyer on the panel, he was never pressed to justify and present evidence. It was a point left dangling like a bloody great big elephant on a string.. "The calculus of risk had changed." Force was always an option because he said so. It was his personal JUDGEMENT and he had to make that decision.

Blair didn't want his Amurkin buddies, who had officially been seeking regime change since 1998, to be alone. Ah! Murderous foreign policy determined by an act of chivalry.

Blair also humbly claimed to have been the party to persuade President Clinton to put Serbia under heavy manners over Kosovo and get mediaeval on their behinds. In the same way, he said he was telling Bush to go for it in Iraq. I'd always pictured this as a runt egging on the schoolyard bully. But my father had always maintained that people have it wrong: that because British imperialism is the oldest in the world and they are very good at this, it's not America manipulating us; it's the British Foreign Office dog wagging the US tail. And from Blair's account, Dad was right.

The word "oil" finally surfaced with another Mystic Meg moment. Let's not think about what actually happened in 2003, let's think ahead to 2010 with oil "no longer $25 per barrel, but $100 per barrel". Uh, I think oil had occurred to us at the time.

He weaseled out of the infamous BBC Fern Brittan interview where spoke of "removing" Saddam Hussein but now asserts that because he didn't use the actual words "regime change" he's home and dry.

What we do know is that the UN's Article Two states that you can't use military action to effect a regime change, and there's also a matter or proportionality which Shock And Awe most certainly was not. Resolution 1441 was only about disarmament and any action would have had to have been proportionate to that end. But in order to use military action, the phrase "by all necessary means" (diplomacy-speak for war) would have had to have been included. Which it wasn't.

Hah! 14:45 Blair just lied about 1441. He says "It's pretty obvious ... in spirit" it gave us the right to say, "that's it. This Saddam's last chance. For our armed forces that was sufficient". Smite, smite! Not that he uses words to specifically mean violence. He's very carfeful to let the casual listener draw that conclusion. So next time you're up in front of the law, plead "in spirit". His questioner knows no detail of 1441 and can't challenge him.

The panel were helpful, with Sir Rodders Lyne helping out at a weak moment in the performance with the cue, "So you were pressing for the UN route". An OK amdram actor, Blair picked up the cue which I was beginning to wish was a sawn-off snooker cue and that someone would whack him round his big arrogant homicidal head with it.

Sadly, the protest was a washout with STW leadership managing to mass-mobilise only about 250 people. Timed to start at 8am, Honest Tone had slipped into a back door half an hour earlier and caught the organisers napping.

Depressing to see the line-up of commentators in the media consisting of Westminster Village hawks and lackeys. The strongest detractor was Sir Menzies Campbell on BBC R4 lunchtime news. Where's George Galloway, Bob Marshall Andrews and Craig Murray, f'rinstance? Sharp accounts from Craig Murray here and here

Je ne regrette rien Tony Blair Part Deux

Minority Report: Tony Blair at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry Pt I

Lunchtime. A slippery and unapologetic Tony Blair defended his right to smite at the Iraq Inquiry this morning with his well-rehearsed Minority Report line: we knew Saddam was a bad man and would have done bad things. So you can now be done for pre-crime and Blair is the man to decide.

"It was all about risk" and not an actual threat, he smarmed. "I made the decision based on RISK of renewed WMDs." You may do well in a poker game, Tony, but as a Prime Minister your JUDGEMENT (a word he kept repeating ad nauseam) sucked. He couldn't even extract anything from the Americans in exchange for services rendered (not including whatever it is that Blair may have gained personally). Lyne asked why he couldn't get Bush to give him a reach-around and offer anything on the Middle East and Israel. Oh, that's because Bush didn't think Israel was a fundamental issue.

The biggest stunna of the morning was his insistence on linking 911 with Iraq. Even Fox News no longer returns to this bowl of sick. But Blair kept pressing this as if it was possessed of magic properties and, because there is no lawyer on the panel, he was never pressed to justify and present evidence. It was a point left dangling like a bloody great big elephant on a string.. "The calculus of risk had changed." Force was always an option because he said so. It was his personal JUDGEMENT and he had to make that decision.

Blair didn't want his Amurkin buddies, who had officially been seeking regime change since 1998, to be alone. Ah! Murderous foreign policy determined by an act of chivalry.

Blair also humbly claimed to have been the party to persuade President Clinton to put Serbia under heavy manners over Kosovo and get mediaeval on their behinds. In the same way, he said he was telling Bush to go for it in Iraq. I'd always pictured this as a runt egging on the schoolyard bully. But my father had always maintained that people have it wrong: that because British imperialism is the oldest in the world and they are very good at this, it's not America manipulating us; it's the British Foreign Office dog wagging the US tail. And from Blair's account, Dad was right.

The word "oil" finally surfaced with another Mystic Meg moment. Let's not think about what actually happened in 2003, let's think ahead to 2010 with oil "no longer $25 per barrel, but $100 per barrel". Uh, I think oil had occurred to us at the time.

He weaseled out of the infamous BBC Fern Brittan interview where spoke of "removing" Saddam Hussein but now asserts that because he didn't use the actual words "regime change" he's home and dry.

What we do know is that the UN's Article Two states that you can't use military action to effect a regime change, and there's also a matter or proportionality which Shock And Awe most certainly was not. Resolution 1441 was only about disarmament and any action would have had to have been proportionate to that end. But in order to use military action, the phrase "by all necessary means" (diplomacy-speak for war) would have had to have been included. Which it wasn't.

Hah! 14:45 Blair just lied about 1441. He says "It's pretty obvious ... in spirit" it gave us the right to say, "that's it. This Saddam's last chance. For our armed forces that was sufficient". Smite, smite! Not that he uses words to specifically mean violence. He's very carfeful to let the casual listener draw that conclusion. So next time you're up in front of the law, plead "in spirit". His questioner knows no detail of 1441 and can't challenge him.

The panel were helpful, with Sir Rodders Lyne helping out at a weak moment in the performance with the cue, "So you were pressing for the UN route". An OK amdram actor, Blair picked up the cue which I was beginning to wish was a sawn-off snooker cue and that someone would whack him round his big arrogant homicidal head with it.

Sadly, the protest was a washout with STW leadership managing to mass-mobilise only about 250 people. Timed to start at 8am, Honest Tone had slipped into a back door half an hour earlier and caught the organisers napping.

Depressing to see the line-up of commentators in the media consisting of Westminster Village hawks and lackeys. The strongest detractor was Sir Menzies Campbell on BBC R4 lunchtime news. Where's George Galloway, Bob Marshall Andrews and Craig Murray, f'rinstance? Sharp accounts from Craig Murray here and here

Je ne regrette rien Tony Blair Part Deux

Chilcot chums: who are the inquisitors?

What's the chance of the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry arriving at a satisfactory objective conclusion?

Andy Beckett asks in The Guardian if the inquiry can do a better job than past whitewashes.

Then there are the inquisitors themselves. None of them is a lawyer, despite the Iraq war being a minefield of legal issues. All are peers, and four out of the five are men; the sole woman is Baroness Usha Prashar. What is more, all four men seem to have pro-government elements in their biographies.

The chairman, Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, was part of the Butler inquiry panel which, in the eyes of most observers, was robust in its detailed judgments but too charitable in its conclusions. Sir Martin Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill; in 2004 he wrote in the Observer, "George W Bush and Tony Blair . . . may well, with the passage of time . . . join the ranks of [Franklin] Roosevelt and Churchill [as war leaders] when Iraq has a stable democracy."

Sir Lawrence Freedman is another grand British historian – professor of war studies at King's College London since 1982 – with less than neutral past views on Iraq. In the lead-up to war, he repeatedly wrote hawkish articles for British newspapers about the strategic threat allegedly posed by Saddam Hussein. In 1999, he contributed heavily to a famous Blair speech in Chicago that set out the arguments for military action against repressive and dangerous regimes.

Finally there is Sir Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Russia. In Alastair Campbell's diaries he is referred to fondly as "Rod". In June 2003, a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, the Times reported that during an international summit in St Petersburg, "Campbell took time out to race Sir Roderic Lyne through six miles of city streets. This was the third in a series of three races that the pair have run."

Watch Blair's testimony live on Friday at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry website.

UPDATE: Applause for Flying Rodent's splendid rant, Lefties – stop chasing the Chilcot farce at Liberal Conspiracy on what the real narrative actually is and why everything else is smoke and mirrors. Good comment at No 9, as well.

Chilcot chums: who are the inquisitors?

What's the chance of the Chilcott Iraq Inquiry arriving at a satisfactory objective conclusion?

Andy Beckett asks in The Guardian if the inquiry can do a better job than past whitewashes.

Then there are the inquisitors themselves. None of them is a lawyer, despite the Iraq war being a minefield of legal issues. All are peers, and four out of the five are men; the sole woman is Baroness Usha Prashar. What is more, all four men seem to have pro-government elements in their biographies.

The chairman, Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant, was part of the Butler inquiry panel which, in the eyes of most observers, was robust in its detailed judgments but too charitable in its conclusions. Sir Martin Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill; in 2004 he wrote in the Observer, "George W Bush and Tony Blair . . . may well, with the passage of time . . . join the ranks of [Franklin] Roosevelt and Churchill [as war leaders] when Iraq has a stable democracy."

Sir Lawrence Freedman is another grand British historian – professor of war studies at King's College London since 1982 – with less than neutral past views on Iraq. In the lead-up to war, he repeatedly wrote hawkish articles for British newspapers about the strategic threat allegedly posed by Saddam Hussein. In 1999, he contributed heavily to a famous Blair speech in Chicago that set out the arguments for military action against repressive and dangerous regimes.

Finally there is Sir Roderic Lyne, a former British ambassador to Russia. In Alastair Campbell's diaries he is referred to fondly as "Rod". In June 2003, a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, the Times reported that during an international summit in St Petersburg, "Campbell took time out to race Sir Roderic Lyne through six miles of city streets. This was the third in a series of three races that the pair have run."

Watch Blair's testimony live on Friday at the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry website.

UPDATE: Applause for Flying Rodent's splendid rant, Lefties – stop chasing the Chilcot farce at Liberal Conspiracy on what the real narrative actually is and why everything else is smoke and mirrors. Good comment at No 9, as well.

Tony Blair advises shady hedge fund: reward for citizens arrest on war-crime charges

Has this man no shame? Just when you think he can't get any worse, Tony Blair hits rock bottom and breaks through to a whole new bottom no-one knew anything about. Our former British Prime Minister dons fishnets and high heels and makes yet another tranche of loot, this time hundreds of thousands from giving lectures to a shady hedge fund that made millions betting on the failure of our banks.

This is the person who makes £2.5 million per year from JP Morgan, the bank that profits most from co-ordinating the pillage of Iraq, from the war that he helped start. Conflict of interest, much? Here's hoping he gets his just deserts when he appears at Chilcot Iraq Inquiry on Friday and realises how reviled he is. Not that I expect he'll care. Money has a funny way of easing the conscience.

Former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle said:

'I never cease to be amazed by Mr Blair's money-making activities. It goes to show that as far as Mr Blair is concerned, his political and public life is behind him and he appears to have no sense of responsibility to those who have been left behind. His entire lifestyle is an ongoing source of embarrassment to everyone in the Labour Party.'

Bob Marshall-Andrews, another Labour MP, said:

'Nothing that this man does surprises me any more after watching him in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.'

Integrity? Propriety? Principles? Going (not so) cheap.

Oh to see him have to spend his ill-gotten gains on lawyers at a war-crimes trial at the Hague. George Monbiot says arrest him and claim your reward:

... was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg tribunal called "the supreme international crime": the crime of aggression. ... Without legal justification, the war with Iraq was an act of mass murder: those who died were unlawfully killed by the people who commissioned it.

Monbiot has started a pot for anyone willing to bring Blair to book and make a citizens arrest. So far there's £1534.00 up for grabs and rising.

UPDATE: A fascinating-sounding BBC Radio 4 play based on Craig Murray's book, Saturday Feb 20th, 2:30pm — put this in your diaries. World Premiere of Murder in Samarkand by Sir David Hare based on the memoir by the former ambassador about his brush with Bush and Blair as the Iraq invasion became inevitable. David Tennant stars as Craig Murray.

Matthew Norman on Blair the pariah at Chilcot.

Andy Beckett, The Guardian, on how cosy the Chilcot inquisitors are with the Blair posse and the hawks.

Tony Blair advises shady hedge fund: reward for citizens arrest on war-crime charges

Has this man no shame? Just when you think he can't get any worse, Tony Blair hits rock bottom and breaks through to a whole new bottom no-one knew anything about. Our former British Prime Minister dons fishnets and high heels and makes yet another tranche of loot, this time hundreds of thousands from giving lectures to a shady hedge fund that made millions betting on the failure of our banks.

This is the person who makes £2.5 million per year from JP Morgan, the bank that profits most from co-ordinating the pillage of Iraq, from the war that he helped start. Conflict of interest, much? Here's hoping he gets his just deserts when he appears at Chilcot Iraq Inquiry on Friday and realises how reviled he is. Not that I expect he'll care. Money has a funny way of easing the conscience.

Former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle said:

'I never cease to be amazed by Mr Blair's money-making activities. It goes to show that as far as Mr Blair is concerned, his political and public life is behind him and he appears to have no sense of responsibility to those who have been left behind. His entire lifestyle is an ongoing source of embarrassment to everyone in the Labour Party.'

Bob Marshall-Andrews, another Labour MP, said:

'Nothing that this man does surprises me any more after watching him in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.'

Integrity? Propriety? Principles? Going (not so) cheap.

Oh to see him have to spend his ill-gotten gains on lawyers at a war-crimes trial at the Hague. George Monbiot says arrest him and claim your reward:

... was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg tribunal called "the supreme international crime": the crime of aggression. ... Without legal justification, the war with Iraq was an act of mass murder: those who died were unlawfully killed by the people who commissioned it.

Monbiot has started a pot for anyone willing to bring Blair to book and make a citizens arrest. So far there's £1534.00 up for grabs and rising.

UPDATE: A fascinating-sounding BBC Radio 4 play based on Craig Murray's book, Saturday Feb 20th, 2:30pm — put this in your diaries. World Premiere of Murder in Samarkand by Sir David Hare based on the memoir by the former ambassador about his brush with Bush and Blair as the Iraq invasion became inevitable. David Tennant stars as Craig Murray.

Matthew Norman on Blair the pariah at Chilcot.

Andy Beckett, The Guardian, on how cosy the Chilcot inquisitors are with the Blair posse and the hawks.

News round-up: Chilcot, Blair and Brangelina

Another picture in the frame this week.

News of Gordon Brown and his offer to loan Barack Obama the painting that inspired Barry in his youth — Hope by Victorian English artist George Frederic Watts. It would have hung in the Oval Office except it's indelibly associated with preacher Jeremiah Wright, the man who introduced it to him and nearly sunk Obama's bid for the presidency when he suggested that vicious US foreign policy might have something to do with terrorist attacks. The devil lying in the detail, it's revealed that Tony Blair's artwork gift to Bush was ... a bust of Conservative Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (since replaced by one of Martin Luther King). Considering the first former PM Blair invited into Number 10 wasn't his own party's James Callaghan but Margaret Thatcher, I think this says a lot about where his tiny shrunken political heart truly lay.

A picture speaks a thousand words but still not as many as the ban on the autopsy report of the death of Dr David Kelly for a whacking 70 years. Hmm, I wonder what it is that could worry the government so. After all, we all know that Kelly commited suicide by opening his tiny ulnar artery in one wrist with a blunt garden knife. Don't we?

The body of former United Nations weapons inspector Dr Kelly was found in July 2003 in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the Government’s claims that
Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Days before Tony Blair appears at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, Home Secretary Alan Johnson raises UK terror threat level to "severe". Some wags have commented, "Iraq Inquiry not going too well then..." Should we expect something "severe" just before Blair's appearance at Chilcot on Friday? Images of tanks at Heathrow might be handy.

Suzanne Moore on moral compasses versus cowboy boots in today's Mail On Sunday:

[Straw] remains in the Cabinet though he now says the war he backed was ‘self-evidently unlawful’. By this he meant getting rid of Saddam militarily without a UN mandate. Hoon apparently felt the same. ... Though we are talking about thousands of dead Iraqis, hundreds of dead British soldiers, the issue that appears to be most important is that they only did what they were told to do even if they had private doubts. ... Alastair Campbell says he has learned some lessons from Iraq. That you can get away with murder might be one.

Remember this, kids, when they are blinding you with bureaucracy and touting United Nations Security Resolution 1441 as being the Golden Ticket for taking us into war with Iraq:

[Of France and Germany not tabling the second resolution] But they did not table it because we gave assurances to the French and Germans (and Russians and Chinese) that our draft of UNSCR 1441 did not authorise military action. The instructions were to inform those governments that UNSCR 1441 contained "no automatic trigger" which would lead to military action. ... all the FCO material at the time of the adoption of UNSCR 1441 and for weeks afterwards right up until March, took the view that UNSCR 1441 did not provide legal grounds for the invasion.

Aside from getting help to Haiti hours ahead of the US and their 5,000 troops, China has just announced a further $2.64 million in aid to the devastated nation. (Haiti, that is, not the US.)

Brangelina split but agree to divide the kids and $200 million.

Top lawyer damns Blair as Bush sycophant over war

Today's Times carries a powerful article by Sir Ken Macdonald, director of public prosecutions between 2003 and 2008, that says Blair was drunk on power when it came to dragging us into the Iraq war, engaging in "an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush" and going on to "mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want".

"In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so. Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that 'hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right'. But this is a narcissist's defence, and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death."

But he warns that the Chilcot inquiry may turn out to be a whitewash.

"In British public life, loyalty and service to power can sometimes count for more to insiders than any tricky questions of wider reputation. It's the regard you are held in by your peers that really counts, so that steadfastness in the face of attack and threatened exposure brings its own rich hierarchy of honour and reward."

We all knew Blair had a weak character. Why couldn't his own party see it?

See Blair admits war lies

Top lawyer damns Blair as Bush sycophant over war

Today's Times carries a powerful article by Sir Ken Macdonald, director of public prosecutions between 2003 and 2008, that says Blair was drunk on power when it came to dragging us into the Iraq war, engaging in "an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush" and going on to "mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want".

"In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so. Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that 'hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right'. But this is a narcissist's defence, and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death."

But he warns that the Chilcot inquiry may turn out to be a whitewash.

"In British public life, loyalty and service to power can sometimes count for more to insiders than any tricky questions of wider reputation. It's the regard you are held in by your peers that really counts, so that steadfastness in the face of attack and threatened exposure brings its own rich hierarchy of honour and reward."

We all knew Blair had a weak character. Why couldn't his own party see it?

See Blair admits war lies

Tony Blair admits Iraq war lies: what happens at Chilcot?

What sort of madness is it that makes a person insist in the face of facts, principles and public opposition, that they alone are right in taking an action that results in over a million civilian deaths, impoverishes us as a nation and rips up our moral fabric?

What sort of moral bankruptcy allows that person to take money from the very companies that made a fortune from the war they started?

What sort of society allows this to happen with no constraints or consequences?

Tony Blair has now admitted in the softest of interviews with BBC's Fern Britton — not Jeremy Paxman or any of the other heavyweights, note —that his decision to go to war in Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and everything to do with regime change.

Isn't this illegal under international law? How many service men and women died because of his faked-up reasons? I'm far from being alone in believing that Blair should now be tried as a war criminal. Blair did what he wanted like he was some third world potentate with divine right to rule with hardly any opposition from his own party to their eternal shame. (Honours, of course, to those few lone voices within the party who did put up a fight and deserve better company than the sheep.)

I never believed him for one moment about WMDs. To me and millions of others who opposed the war, it was a far-fetched cold-war paranoia about moustache-twirling, cat-stroking villains that served the neo-con agenda to grab oil and open up the nation's finance to foreign banks; banks such as JP Morgan charged with co-ordinating the plundering of Iraq and now paying Blair $2 million a year for services rendered.

He said in his typically self-pitying way: "There is no point in going in to a situation of conflict and not understanding there is going to be a price paid."

The trouble is, it's not you paying the price, is it, Tony? It's Iraqi civilians, British soldiers and our national finances. You, Tony, are very far from paying any price, having pocketed your loot.

His change of tack would indicate that the revelations heard so far in the Chilcot inquiry have had an effect on his morale and he's desperately slipping and sliding around to avoid being exposed as a lying, self-serving war criminal bereft of any moral compass save some cartoon Ivanhoe self-image in which he saves the world (TM Gordon Brown) and earns the undying gratitude of powerful men.

What happened to democracy? To British fair play? To the rule of law? For people like Blair, it's no longer about serving your country — it's how can your country serve you and devil take the hindmost.

UPDATE: A FEW FACTS
The Iraq war has cost the UK £6.5 billion.
"Secret MoD documents leaked to the Press now confirm that preparations for the war began as early as February 2002." Paul Routlege in The Mirror.
179 British service men and women have died in the conflict.
Over a million Iraqis have been killed.
"Tony Blair is paid $2 million a year by JP Morgan, the bank at the centre of Iraq "restructuring".
"Total spending for both wars will reach 4.37 billion pounds ($7.15 billion) in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2010, compared with 1.56 in the year ended March 2006, according to Ministry of Defense figures published by the House of Commons Defense Committee."

Tony Blair admits Iraq war lies: what happens at Chilcot?

What sort of madness is it that makes a person insist in the face of facts, principles and public opposition, that they alone are right in taking an action that results in over a million civilian deaths, impoverishes us as a nation and rips up our moral fabric?

What sort of moral bankruptcy allows that person to take money from the very companies that made a fortune from the war they started?

What sort of society allows this to happen with no constraints or consequences?

Tony Blair has now admitted in the softest of interviews with BBC's Fern Britton — not Jeremy Paxman or any of the other heavyweights, note —that his decision to go to war in Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and everything to do with regime change.

Isn't this illegal under international law? How many service men and women died because of his faked-up reasons? I'm far from being alone in believing that Blair should now be tried as a war criminal. Blair did what he wanted like he was some third world potentate with divine right to rule with hardly any opposition from his own party to their eternal shame. (Honours, of course, to those few lone voices within the party who did put up a fight and deserve better company than the sheep.)

I never believed him for one moment about WMDs. To me and millions of others who opposed the war, it was a far-fetched cold-war paranoia about moustache-twirling, cat-stroking villains that served the neo-con agenda to grab oil and open up the nation's finance to foreign banks; banks such as JP Morgan charged with co-ordinating the plundering of Iraq and now paying Blair $2 million a year for services rendered.

He said in his typically self-pitying way: "There is no point in going in to a situation of conflict and not understanding there is going to be a price paid."

The trouble is, it's not you paying the price, is it, Tony? It's Iraqi civilians, British soldiers and our national finances. You, Tony, are very far from paying any price, having pocketed your loot.

His change of tack would indicate that the revelations heard so far in the Chilcot inquiry have had an effect on his morale and he's desperately slipping and sliding around to avoid being exposed as a lying, self-serving war criminal bereft of any moral compass save some cartoon Ivanhoe self-image in which he saves the world (TM Gordon Brown) and earns the undying gratitude of powerful men.

What happened to democracy? To British fair play? To the rule of law? For people like Blair, it's no longer about serving your country — it's how can your country serve you and devil take the hindmost.

UPDATE: A FEW FACTS
The Iraq war has cost the UK £6.5 billion.
"Secret MoD documents leaked to the Press now confirm that preparations for the war began as early as February 2002." Paul Routlege in The Mirror.
179 British service men and women have died in the conflict.
Over a million Iraqis have been killed.
"Tony Blair is paid $2 million a year by JP Morgan, the bank at the centre of Iraq "restructuring".
"Total spending for both wars will reach 4.37 billion pounds ($7.15 billion) in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2010, compared with 1.56 in the year ended March 2006, according to Ministry of Defense figures published by the House of Commons Defense Committee."

Iraq war inquiry into Bomber Blair's role begins

Remember "Yo, Blair!"?

I was going to bring you video footage of a graphic novel launch on Sunday at the ICA where German comics star Reinhard Kleist brought out his first English language book, Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness, but battles with my new Final Cut Express 4 and a stupid new iMovie version which has no timeline means I won't get it edited until the weekend. I just want to mention the event was sponsored by Chivas Regal ... Oh my poor head.

Meanwhile, back at the funny farm ...

The Chilcot inquiry into the British role in the Iraq war gets under way today. There's an excellent minute-by-minute update by Andrew Sparrow at the Guardian of proceedings at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Hall in Westminster. A tellingly bad opening established that there weren't enough seats for the relatives of dead soldiers, let alone all the press that needed access. Only ONE seat for the Guardian?

Sparrow reports this from Michael Howard on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

Tony Blair told the House of Commons that the intelligence he received on weapons of mass destruction was 'detailed, extensive and authoritative'. What he had actually been told by the intelligence community was that the information they had was 'limited, sporadic and patchy'. He translated those words 'limited, sporadic and patchy' into 'detailed, extensive and authoritative' and ... that is a clear example of how he misled the House of Commons and the nation.

Pretty bloody damning.

And it looks as if Gordon Brown — a key member of Team Bomber Blair — will refuse to testify. This is our form of "Pleading the Fifth".

In the Daily Mail the other day, Peter Oborne wrote this powerful piece on Blair and why he was so desperate to get that EU Presidency job.

Tony Blair looks haunted, but with new claims that he was behind torture and war lies he's got a lot to be haunted by ... For the truth is that evidence continues to amass that, under the Blair premiership, the British state was responsible, at times, for some illegal actions which, on occasions, could be considered to be barbarism.

Precisely.

Tony Blair's World War Tour: Iraq 1998, Serbia 1999, Sierra Leone 2000, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003

Former British diplomat Craig Murray on the first day of the Chilcot inquiry.

See also Madam Miaow on President Blair: The Great Escape

Iraq war inquiry into Bomber Blair's role begins

Remember "Yo, Blair!"?

I was going to bring you video footage of a graphic novel launch on Sunday at the ICA where German comics star Reinhard Kleist brought out his first English language book, Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness, but battles with my new Final Cut Express 4 and a stupid new iMovie version which has no timeline means I won't get it edited until the weekend. I just want to mention the event was sponsored by Chivas Regal ... Oh my poor head.

Meanwhile, back at the funny farm ...

The Chilcot inquiry into the British role in the Iraq war gets under way today. There's an excellent minute-by-minute update by Andrew Sparrow at the Guardian of proceedings at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Hall in Westminster. A tellingly bad opening established that there weren't enough seats for the relatives of dead soldiers, let alone all the press that needed access. Only ONE seat for the Guardian?

Sparrow reports this from Michael Howard on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

Tony Blair told the House of Commons that the intelligence he received on weapons of mass destruction was 'detailed, extensive and authoritative'. What he had actually been told by the intelligence community was that the information they had was 'limited, sporadic and patchy'. He translated those words 'limited, sporadic and patchy' into 'detailed, extensive and authoritative' and ... that is a clear example of how he misled the House of Commons and the nation.

Pretty bloody damning.

And it looks as if Gordon Brown — a key member of Team Bomber Blair — will refuse to testify. This is our form of "Pleading the Fifth".

In the Daily Mail the other day, Peter Oborne wrote this powerful piece on Blair and why he was so desperate to get that EU Presidency job.

Tony Blair looks haunted, but with new claims that he was behind torture and war lies he's got a lot to be haunted by ... For the truth is that evidence continues to amass that, under the Blair premiership, the British state was responsible, at times, for some illegal actions which, on occasions, could be considered to be barbarism.

Precisely.

Tony Blair's World War Tour: Iraq 1998, Serbia 1999, Sierra Leone 2000, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003

Former British diplomat Craig Murray on the first day of the Chilcot inquiry.

See also Madam Miaow on President Blair: The Great Escape