catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:00 pm Post subject: Blair says Sept. 11 changed 'calculus of risk' |
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The Sept. 11 attacks in the United States heightened the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, former British prime minister Tony Blair said Friday as he defended his decision to take his country to war against Iraq.
�Up to Sept. 11, we thought he was a risk but we thought it was worth trying to contain it. The crucial thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed," Blair told a British inquiry investigating the decision-making process that led up to the war.
"It's absolutely essential to realize this. If Sept. 11 hadn't happened, our assessment of the risk of allowing Saddam any possibility of his reconstituting his programs would not have been the same," Blair said. "After Sept. 11, our view � the American view � changed. And changed dramatically."
Blair said sanctions against Saddam, including those that prevented him from getting material to create weapons of mass destruction, were eroding.
The former prime minister said the risk of sticking with a strategy of trying to contain the Iraqi leader was no longer an option.
"It might have worked, it might not have worked. But it was at least as likely � if not more likely, I would say � that it wouldn't work."
Blair acknowledged that what had changed was the perception of risk of WMDs and not the risk itself, as it was later found that Saddam did not possess such weapons.
"It wasn't that objectively [Saddam] had done more, it was that our perception of the risk had shifted," Blair said.
"If those people inspired by this religious fanaticism [on Sept. 11] could have killed 30,000, they would have. From that moment Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq ... all of this had to be brought to an end."
Blair stressed that the key issue in deciding to take military action against Iraq was WMDs, coupled with Saddam's continued defiance of the United Nations and calls for weapons inspections.
�The position was that it was the breach of the United Nations resolutions on WMD. That was the cause. It was then and it remains.�
�In my view, we cannot afford the possibility that nations, particularly nations that are brutal � rogue states, states that take an attitude that is wholly contrary to our way of life � you cannot afford such states to be allowed to develop or proliferate WMD.�
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I honestly did not expect the 9/11 excuse for invading Iraq to be used. Many neo-cons had stopped using that one years ago. |
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