Do most people 'dislike' Tony Blair?

[AgentZigzag]

I accept that the word dislike may not fully encompass the emotional response he provokes in some people, but I personally don't think he's that bad. I see him as a politician who's had to make difficult decisions, rather than someone who took us to war for dishonest reasons.

It was his job to look at the bigger picture after 9/11, I've just seen him saying on the Iraq Inquiry that 3000 people were killed on that day, and if they could have, they would have killed 30000. Surely he had to do everything and anything he thought necessary to try and protect us from people whose reality is so distorted that they would gladly kill and maim as many people in the west as possible, and certainly don't play by any of the rules of normal modern warfare.

I don't think I'm being naive, and I can't stand Labour so it's not because I'm some NuLab fan, but I just don't think he's as bad as the media wants us to think he is.

The reasons he gave for going to war were wrong. The inability to think far enough ahead to deal with the aftermath was wrong. This was the leader of the country ffs. And plenty of people were concerned before the war - there was the biggest march in British history for a start - no-one had hindsight at that point.

What did he lie about?

The reasons for going to war are only wrong now, at the time, if they genuinely thought he was a threat, they'd be mad not to attack first. I'm not a war mongerer, but nor am I a 'lets all be friends and get on' person, world politics don't work like that. I know Saddam Hussein was an aggressive leader who had constantly attacked his neighbours and had even killed his own people with chemical weapons.

You can't bargain with, or use diplomacy on someone like that.

I don't dislike him. It's easy to criticise but hindsight is alway 20/20, and it must have been incredibly difficult to call..

Agree with Agent Zigzag that he made the decisions he thought were right at the time.

But that's the killer question. Did they believe he was genuinely a threat, and was there enough evidence to support that belief?

He didn't lie about WMD - he had wrong information and the 45 minutes is a red herring anyway. Saddam was not cooperating with the UN and was breaching all the UN resolutions and inspections etc.

It is a media story to say he was licking George Bush's arse. There is no evidence of this, apart from columnists' opinions.

Was Saddam a threat? He had killed thousands of people already, and was not cooperating with the UN, and was definitely aiming to go nuclear???

Thousands of his own people - just like Mugabe (where no action is being taken, and who is also unco-operative). Seems to be evidence that he didn't have the capability to go nuclear. Where is the evidence that he had the capability to be a threat to the west?

Hussein was a vile vile man btw.

OK and I'll give you Kuwait and the Kurds too.

But surely LadyBlaBla, you'd hope that if the leader of a country is willing to take the country to war, sacrifice lives and spend billions of £s, he would check to make sure that the information he was acting on was correct?

He also did some rather sneaky, manipulative things.
Normally, the PM can decide to go to war, without having to get parliament to vote. He did allow parliament to vote on the issue (showing that he was letting the "people" speak), but MPs were basically told - you follow the party line or lose your jobs.

Difference between Saddam and Mugabe is nuclear.

There is no doubt that Saddam wanted to go nuclear and had started to go nuclear, but it had been dismantled by the UN. And it seems they had evidence that he wanted to start it again.

About checking information - which information do you mean? The 45 minute thing - that doesn't really matter does it? A threat is a threat is a threat.

Could be 45 hours and we would still be in the shit.

Mugabe though doesn't have any means to be even a potential threat to us and our way of life, whereas Hussein (I hate it when the media etc call him Saddam, as if in a friendly on-first-name-term with him) had shown himself to be a devious dictator who was interested in widening his territories and would not put up with any opposition to his regime. Any tipping of power in any way in the area would be likely to spark off who knows what destruction and destabilisation.

Don't all states who haven't got nuclear capabilities want to get them? I can't think of any who say they'd rather not have them.

Probably nothing personal....people are just wondering why the Labour party took us to war.

Labour (were) always anti-war....? ? ? ?

The Tories would happily blow up anyone...

Brilliant. Hussein fancies another pop at nucelar capability. We've defeated him in Kuwait, successfully dismantled his last effort, but this time we won't rely on our previous successes, but will take him out with no plan for the aftermath.

Sorry, that argument just doesn't stack up, hindsight or no.

Tone seems to call him nothing but Saddam

Having just read finished reading Alastair Campbell's diaries, what struck me about Blair was his very shallowness, his lack of political sincerity and his narcissism. (Pity I've taken it back to the library, otherwise I'd have included some quotations).

The book changed my opinion of Blair somewhat. Having never been a fan of his, he came across as pleasanter and more decent on a personal level than I judged him. For example, I found his highly personalised attacks on Major very offputting and I was glad to hear that Blair didn't enjoy that aspect of politics (unlike his mate Campbell). But, from what I gleaned, he never had any particularly strong political convictions and I suspect he would have been equally happy serving as as a Tory prime minister.

We never had success there - and unfortunately STILL don't !

If we HAD won it easily then maybe we wouldn't be questioning Blair

Talking about the potential nuclear threat from Iraq..

LOrd Lawson pointed out on Question Time last night that the Iraq war has left Iran as the major power in the area. And which country is now trying to develop nuclear weapons? Can't see Brown and Obama taking that one on.

But isn't that the problem scarlett - having another with the capability of Iran is just double the trouble

No. Pissing off even more people to increase the determination to have nucelar capability to protect against seemingly random western incursion into the region has bene the problem.

I voted him in, but I regretted it, he took Britain to war and most people were against that - he was so wrong.

I don't like him on any level, that job he got as peace envoy to the middle east sickened me too.

I haven't voted Labour since.

He makes me angry really.

There was no chance of standard negotiation and discussion as per Western standards. They were not communicating and were hiding what they were doing?

Who were the enemy?

I think Churchill was a turncoat scarlet, and a right numpty before the war, so political shallowness is quite normal. Although I'm not in any way suggesting Blair is on the same footing as The Great Man

I recon they will take on Iran at some point, who are spoiling for a fight IMO.

Iraq was at least some form of counter-balance to Iran. Now that has been lost. You're much more likely to use a WMD if you know your enemy is unable to respond in like manner.