Reply #3: Reuters: Blair pledges backing for Iraqi PM in Baghdad

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Blair pledges backing for Iraqi PM in Baghdad

REUTERS 3 Minutes Ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged his full support for Iraq's prime minister during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday and urged neighboring countries not to undermine Nuri al-Maliki's government.

Blair said he and Maliki had discussed the need for national reconciliation, building up Iraq's security forces and "the importance of the support of all countries in the region for this process."

"We stand ready to support you in every way that we can so that in time the Iraq government and the Iraqi people can take full responsibility for their affairs," Blair told a joint news conference with Maliki in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

"Most of all I reiterated our determination to stand full square behind you and the Iraqi people in assuring that your democracy is not destroyed by terrorism, sectarianism, by those who wish to live in hatred rather than in peace," Blair said.

Asked about concerns that Syria and Iran were not doing enough to help in Iraq, Blair said: "It's important that we exercise all the pressure and authority that we have to make sure that all countries in the region are supporting Iraq.

"There's a very strong obligation which is set out in the U.N. resolution for all countries in the region to be supportive of the Iraqi prime minister and his government ... and not undermine them," he said.

but there's more

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Blair questioned on peerages for pay
For police to probe sitting premier is unprecedented
Alan Cowell, New York Times

Friday, December 15, 2006

Tony Blair, British prime minister, arrives at the Europe...
http://tinyurl.com/tr2oz

(12-15) 04:00 PST London -- The British police interviewed Prime Minister Tony Blair Thursday as a \ witness in a scandal over accusations that high honors were traded for political contributions. The idea of the police questioning a prime minister struck British journalists as virtually unheard of.

A spokesman for Blair said that the interview, lasting almost two hours, was not conducted under what is called police caution, meaning he was seen as a witness and not a suspect.

But with Blair serving his final months after promising to step down, and with his ratings savaged and his legacy threatened by the war in Iraq, the episode at 10 Downing Street added another damaging burden for a leader who took office in 1997 promising a spotless political order.

"It is yet one more straw on the back of a rather struggling camel," said Rodney Barker, a professor of government at the London School of Economics.


COMMENTARY: The BALTIMORE CHRONICLE
The Iraqi Flim-Flam: Bush-Blair Lies Confirmed Again
Was this obscene war based on lies? Yes.
by CHRIS FLOYD
http://tinyurl.com/y2cqsv

Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war (The Independent, via rebellenation). Excerpts:

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".